Five years after he was randomly attacked, David Cameros Gomez says the impact remains

It was 7 p.m. on Nov. 19, 2020. David Cameros Gomez had spent the last two weeks at his Waltham home quarantining with COVID. He had just gone out for groceries and once home, took out the trash. At the dumpster, with no warning, he was struck in the head. 

He remembers standing in the dark next to a dumpster, illuminated by his phone screen, and then the hit. He was knocked unconscious.

“I felt like I fainted for a few seconds and as best as I could, I looked for my phone,” Cameros Gomez said in a recent interview some five years after the attack.

Once he found his phone, he called 911.

The attack was random, as far as he could tell. Cameros Gomez said he didn’t feel he was targeted.

He — and the rest of the city — came to learn it was not an isolated assault.

An unidentified person had been attacking people across Waltham in a similar random manner since Nov. 10 that year, which made residents fearful. 

The string of attacks spanned 17 days, and no arrest was made for a month following the first assault.

On Dec. 11, 2020, Clauvens Janvier was initially arrested and charged in connection to one assault that took place a month prior. 

Following an investigation by Waltham police, the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office and Massachusetts State Police, Janvier was connected to 11 other assaults across the city between Nov. 10 and Nov. 27 that year, according to a press release from the DA and Waltham police.

Janvier, a 29-year-old Waltham man, pleaded guilty to charges in connection to the 12 attacks and was sentenced Jan. 6 at Middlesex Superior Court. He received a sentence of 14 years and one day at the Souza Baranowski Correctional Center in Lancaster. 

According to Cameros Gomez, however, that isn’t enough.

“He behaves very well on the outside. I think he’ll get up to half that time and be released much sooner,” he said.

In a January interview, Cameros Gomez recounted the lasting impacts of the assault.

In the weeks following the incident, Cameros Gomez said he could only open his jaw enough to consume liquids, causing him to lose weight. He suffered a broken skull but learned from his doctor that he wouldn’t need surgery, that his bones would heal themselves.

But while the bones may have healed, other injuries remain.

“The blow affected a nerve,” he said. “When it rains, when I shave the right side of my face, when I go to the barber, when I brush my teeth I feel a tingling sensation, like pins and needles on the right side of my face.”

Watch CDC, a Waltham nonprofit, helped Cameros Gomez after the attack. The organization paid his rent and bought food.

“I am very grateful to that institution,” said Cameros Gomez, explaining that he initially received support when he had COVID and saw that support continue after the attack.

Cameros Gomez was the fifth victim of 12 total attacks Janvier carried out. He said he felt like the police, however, only began to follow up with the first five victims after Janvier attacked a mailman.

“[The mailman] is someone important here, [while] we are Latinos,” he said. “They only started paying attention when someone important was attacked.”

When asked for comment in response, a spokesperson for Waltham police directed The Waltham Times to the joint press release, declining to comment further.

Four months after the attack, Cameros Gomez moved to Maine. He said he was never contacted to make a victim impact statement in the case.

A spokesperson for the DA’s office did not comment directly following correspondence from The Waltham Times.

Because Janvier accepted a plea deal, Cameros Gomez wasn’t able to testify against his attacker either, though he would have if given the opportunity he said.

When asked what he would say to Janvier, Cameros Gomez expressed hope that his attacker is forgiven by God.

“I don’t wish ill on anyone, no matter how much of an enemy they are, because karma exists and God takes care of everything,” he said.

All quotes in this story were translated to English from an interview conducted in Spanish.