By admin PANORAMA CITY, LOS ANGELES (KABC) — A Panorama City movie theater employee is speaking out after she says she was attacked by a customer who was told she could not bring outside drinks inside the theater.
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The confrontation happened Tuesday night at the Regency Theatre on Van Nuys Boulevard after a customer who was attempting to bring four beverage cans into the venue was asked to put them back in her car.
Footage shows an employee come under attack inside the theater. Video of the incident is now part of a Los Angeles police investigation.
“She struck me in the face pretty good. Dead center. My nose really hurts at the base,” said Ruby Arcos de la Cruz, the employee attacked.
After being attacked by the female customer twice, Arcos de la Cruz fought back. But when the woman’s boyfriend noticed, he shoved Arcos de la Cruz to the ground, slamming the back of her head into the wall.
“The second my head hit the wall my vision went black for a few seconds,” Arcos de la Cruz said. “Then I gained it back, and then once I gained my vision back, I just saw the ceiling and the wall, them on top of me, the managers trying to pull them off of me.”
Arcos de la Cruz went to the emergency room Tuesday night but left after learning her health insurance had expired. She later sought treatment Wednesday at an urgent care center, where a fingernail was removed.
“I have no fingernail. I have it with me in my boyfriend’s car,” she said.
She said she hoped her company would help her navigate the process of getting treatment but says after engaging with a manager she ended up getting no help at all.
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“I thought the company had my back, but they just kind of let me fall through the cracks,” Arcos de la Cruz said. “I had to navigate it all by myself.”
After being left injured and traumatized, she feels quitting isn’t an option because she needs a paycheck.
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“I’m a bit nervous to go back to work,” Arcos de la Cruz said while getting emotional.
A security guard works at the theater a few days a week but was on break at the time the incident occurred.
But it’s not security who goes through customers’ bags, its employees. Employees had also been told the day before there would be consequences if they didn’t check.
Eyewitness News reached out to theater management for comment but had not received a response. The LAPD is searching for the two people involved in the altercation.
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