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Man Arrested In Downtown LA Assault On 2 Women

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – A 30-year-old Sylmar man has surrendered to police on allegations he punched two women at a hot dog stand in downtown L.A. over the weekend, an attack which was caught on video.

Man Arrested In Downtown LA Assault On 2 Women
Cell phone video shows a man punching two women on a crowded downtown Los Angeles sidewalk on Jan. 26, 2019. (Los Angeles Police Department)

Arka Sangbarani Oroojian turned himself in to Los Angeles police Tuesday night and was booked on charges of assault with a deadly weapon.

The assault took place at 6th and Spring Streets on the night of Saturday, Jan. 26. A large man was caught on video punching two women on a crowded sidewalk. Police described Oroojian as 6-foot-3 and weighing 270 pounds.

The video showed both women trying to get up after being punched, but the man hit each of them again, knocking them both to the ground, before running away.

The father of one of the women posted the video on Facebook, saying the two had been standing up for a street vendor the man was hassling. The video, posted to LAPD's twitter account, has been viewed more than 1.1 million times.

Another witness told CBS2 that the suspect was arguing with a vendor over the price of a hot dog when the two women got involved, calling him derogatory names and demanding he leave the vendor alone.

"And they started punching on him first," said the witness, who only identified himself as Stewart. "And once they punched on him first, they're jumping on his back, then he defended hisself [sic] by, you know, counter-punching these women and things like that. So the video caught only the second glimpse of the story."

Oroojian was being held on $90,000 bail, police said.

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