Assault Suspect Sought
Greg Botonis, LA Daily News, Sept. 22
PALMDALE — Sheriff’s investigators are asking for the public’s help in locating an African-American woman who beat a white woman in the parking lot of a Palmdale pizza restaurant.
The crime is being investigated as a hate crime, officials said, because the attacker called the victim racial slurs as she punched her.
The attack occurred about 7 p.m. Saturday after the white woman and a child walked up to the Domino’s restaurant in the 4600 block of East Avenue S as two African-American men and the African-American woman cursed loudly at each other outside the shop.
When the woman asked the trio to take their argument somewhere else because she had a child with her, they “turned their profanity toward the victim,” a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department statement said.
The woman purchased her food and left the restaurant but was followed into the parking lot by the African-American woman, who yelled racial slurs at her.
When the victim got into her car, the assailant punched her repeatedly through the open window while yelling racial slurs, deputies said.
The assailant fled in a beige 1990s-model Mazda MPV minivan with no license plates. The van had two large dents on the rear hatch, officials said.
“We don’t know who the woman (assailant) is yet but we’ve got the information out to the troops to spot the car and find out who she is,” sheriff’s Sgt. Ken Kyle said.
The victim suffered minor injuries including swelling around the right eye but declined medical treatment.
Anyone with information about the attack is asked to call the Palmdale sheriff’s station’s Detectives Bureau at (661) 267-4300.
