WATCH: Mexican Street Hero Saves Brooklyn Pedestrians From Crazy Drivers

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN, NY — New York City's impassioned core of transit activists, their frequent street stunts oft ignored by local police and politicians, got a little help spreading the gospel last week from Mexico City resident Jorge Canez, aka Peatónito, aka "little pedestrian" — a foreign celebrity (of sorts) in the world of pedestrian advocacy.

"The TransAlt Brooklyn Activist Committee, we come out like one Friday a month to do Friday Night Lights... but we're not masked, so I'm sure he'll get a lot of attention," Transportation Alternatives organizer Kristen Miller said in a StreetFilms video report on Canez' visit.

In the video, Canez — disguised in a Lucha Libre mask with neon traffic symbols, plus a black-and-white cape — can be seen darting into crosswalks at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, as well as other crosswalks in the Jay Street-MetroTech area, guarding pedestrians from oncoming vehicles.

In some cases, Canez physically pushes slow-moving cars out of crosswalks and bike lanes.

"Here, the cars turn fast, and they don't respect the pedestrians," he told StreetFilms while policing Jay Street. "So I'm going to stop the cars in order so the pedestrians can walk peacefully to the other side."

Of his inspiration for the Peatónito character, Canez said: "It all started like a joke. But then it started to be a great way to do, like, civic culture in the streets."

In Brooklyn in particular, Canez said he noticed traffic laws being rampantly violated with little to no intervention from police.

"There must be more enforcement for this, no?" he asked, more or less rhetorically.

"If the police are not going to do enforcement for these cars, we as citizens, we have to stand for our rights," he said. "We have to tell the cars to go away."

Or, in the words of some random dude standing on a Downtown Brooklyn street corner: "This is the new superhero right here. He's going to kick Superman's a**."

The NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) and the NYPD did not respond to our requests for comment on Canez' accusations of inaction.

H/T DNAinfo