A 56-year-old Bronx fruit vendor killed by a beating with a baseball bat during an attempted robbery was usually nonconfrontational in the face of thefts, said fellow vendors in the Fordham neighborhood Tuesday. Cops said that on Sept. 12 around 7:30 p.m., Romel Jarrett, 37, and Terrence Downes, 44, attacked Leslie Sanchez after initially trying to rob him at the corner of E. Fordham Road and Grand Concourse. When Sanchez resisted, the pair pounded him repeatedly with a metal baseball bat, striking him in the back of the head. The beloved dad of three died two days later, according to cops. The city medical examiner classified his death as a homicide. “Sometimes crackheads would come and they’d grab something, he wouldn’t really say anything,” said an 18-year-old vendor who identified herself as Valeria. “He wasn’t really the type of person to fight, he would let people take it.” Valeria and her mother, Carolina, sell fruit cups at the bustling intersection across the street from where Sanchez used to have a table, and got to know him over three years. Carolina described Sanchez as humble and generous. “He was a very nice person. Sometimes he would come over, and say, ‘Oh, if you need something, just go over and grab it, you don’t have to pay me now, you can pay me whenever you want. There’s no rush’,” said Carolina, 48, in Spanish. Leslie Sanchez, 56, is pictured with his wife, Maciel, and their two children. (Courtesy of Family) Sanchez’s heartbroken wife, speaking through a translator at her Soundview building, told the Daily News her husband would have given Jarrett and Downes whatever they wanted and that her husband had died needlessly. “She’s just upset because there was no reason for them to do that to him,” a friend of Sanchez’s wife Maciel, who did not share her name, said Tuesday. “Because if they would’ve asked he would’ve given it to them.” “She wants people to know that he’s a family man, he’s good man, left three kids behind, and a wife,” added the friend. Cops arrested Jarrett and Downes the day before Sanchez died, according to police, charging them with attempted murder and first-degree assault. The charges against the pair have since been upgraded to murder, cops said. According to a criminal complaint, the pair wrestled Sanchez to the ground before striking him “multiple times in the head” with the bat, and the victim was on life support at St. Barnabas Hospital in the days before his death. Valeria said Sanchez was beaten so severely that he didn’t look like himself at his funeral, which was held Friday. “You couldn’t even believe it was real,” said the teen. “It was an open casket. Where his injuries were, they put a hat on him. His face was unrecognizable. It was a terrible thing.” Valeria and her mother said there had been more attacks in the area recently, especially on Fordham Plaza. After the death of their friend, they have begun to pack up their table earlier. The attack on Sanchez was reminiscent of the near-deadly assault of another Bronx street vendor in 2017. Souleymane Porgo, a 48-year-old vendor who sold books, bags and socks, was attacked at 149th St. and 3rd Ave. on May 2, 2017 in an area called The Hub by a group of men. He suffered facial fractures and swelling and bleeding in his brain. His horrified wife and two small daughters were witness to the daylight attack, which took place after one man tried to steal a bag and Porgo’s brother ran off the would-be thief, who returned with his friends. The Daily News recovered video of the attack, which showed the thief and his friends continued their assault even after Porgo fell to the ground, slamming his head on the sidewalk. Porgo underwent two skull surgeries and eventually recovered after his attack, later showing a reporter from The News a long scar on his stomach that he says was from skin grafts for his skull. All of the men involved in the attack on Porgo were arrested. Sanchez’s wife was glad for the arrests in her husband’s case and said she was looking forward to justice being served, but said that her and Sanchez’s children, ages 6, 4 and 2 months, were too small to grasp what had happened to their father. “The kids are always asking for their father. They don’t understand. The kids know, but they’re young kids, so they don’t understand what’s going on,” said her friend.