Fernandez looked outside and saw someone popping their inflatables with a knife. When the suspect saw Fernandez, he ran to a black Nissan Altima and took off speeding.
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Fernandez ran outside, called 911 and noticed the Nissan turned around to leave the court. The suspects sped towards him and almost ran him over.
The family has been putting up Christmas inflatables for about three years now for their young son.
“He’s really proud of his collection, so the first thing we thought about after we figured out what happened was how he’s going to react to it, but he’s been amazingly positive about it,” said Fernandez. “He’s put a lot of faith in me that I can get them fixed, so I’m going to try to see if I can fix them.”
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Fernandez said the two males popped about four blow-ups.
“At first he was really disappointed. We we’re trying to blame the weather, trying to blame it on something. We didn’t tell him there was bad people out there, but he quickly figured out what was going on,” he said.
Neighbors have been so supportive, someone even dropped off a Spongebob Squarepants inflatable for their son.
“My son is really proud of them so he wants the whole world to come see them. He just doesn’t realize that there’s some people that might not appreciate them like he appreciates them,” said Fernandez.
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The suspect’s descriptions are unknown, but Marcus said the two males looked young. One thing Fernandez would say to the people that did this is: “It’s just property, ya know, but it is about Christmas, about the kids. We don’t care about the monetary value of it, but it broke my son’s heart. Maybe they won’t understand, but maybe one day when they do have kids, they’ll understand,” he said.
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