Violent sucker-punch caught on camera leaves 68-year-old man severely injured

A brutal attack on an elderly store employee in Riverside County that was captured on surveillance footage last month has left the victim seriously injured and hospitalized. Now, the grieving family wants justice.

The violent assault happened on Oct. 27 outside Sun Valley Market and Liquor on Simpson Road in Winchester where the victim, 68-year-old Carlos Munguia, has worked for four years.

Surveillance footage from a nearby business captured the incident.

The 68-year-old can be seen on video taking the trash out with a dolly in the store’s parking lot when a man approaches him and starts talking to him before suddenly sucker-punching Munguia and running away.

“Right now, he barely opens his eyes. There’s times that he knows who we are and days where he doesn’t know who we are,” Alma Romero, the victim’s daughter-in-law told KTLA’s Shelby Nelson. “It’s sad. We can’t talk to him or bring him home.”

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After getting punched in the face, Mungia can be seen falling and slamming his head against the ground, knocking him unconscious.

The 68-year-old’s wife, who also works at the liquor store with him, had noticed that he’d been gone for a while after saying he was taking out the trash, but it wasn’t until a customer helped pick him and bring him into the store that she knew something was wrong.

When questioned about what happened to him, Munguia, confused, said he fell. His family didn’t learn the truth until they saw the nearby surveillance footage.

“We don’t know what the conversation was about,” Romero said, referring to the video. “Maybe he was asking for money, but Carlos is a person that will give money to a person that needs it. If they need food, he would give it to them.”

Romero told KTLA that her father-in-law suffered a fractured skull and brain bleeding and has a long, uncertain road to recovery.

The suspect was identified as 25-year-old Izack Ramirez from Winchester. He was arrested by deputies with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department a day after the violent assault, when authorities said they found evidence of the crime after serving a search warrant at his home.

“We just want this guy to stay in jail, do his time,” Romero said. “It’s not fair that he hit an elderly 68-year-old that wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

Munguia’s family has organized a GoFundMe campaign to help with the growing cost of his medical expenses, including surgeries and hospital stays.

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