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Caught On Video: Man Punches Out 2 Women Defending Street Vendor In Downtown LA

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Police need the public's help to catch a man who was caught on video punching out two women in downtown Los Angeles.

The LAPD says the altercation happened in the area of 6th and Spring Street on Friday night. The man, in a gray shirt and dark pants, is seen punching two women on a crowded sidewalk.

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

"Someone knows him, and we would like to be one of those people," the LAPD said in a tweet with the video.

The father of one of the women posted the video on Facebook, saying they two had been standing up for a street vendor the man was hassling.

But another witness says the shocking video does not tell the entire story.

"There's two sides to every story, and those women started that," said a man who did not want to go on camera and would only identify himself as Stewart.

Stewart said the man was arguing with a vendor over the price of a hot dog, and the two women got involved, called him derogatory names and told him to leave the vendor alone.

"And they started punching on him first," Stewart said. "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."

Anyone with information about the man's identity can contact LAPD Detective Gonzalez at (213) 996-1851.

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