SAN DIEGO, Calif. (KGTV) — A viral video circulating on social media shows a man walking into a Pacific Beach hotel – he then verbally and physically assaults two women working inside.
ABC 10News sat down with one of the women, Ronnie Toms, a security guard who was on duty at the Pacific Terrace Hotel at the time of the incident.
Toms says the man entered the hotel around 2:00 a.m. on New Year's Eve. She says the man told her and another woman working at the front desk that he had a reservation. When they couldn’t find his name in the system, she says the man became aggressive.
The video then shows the man shoving the other female employee before lunging at Toms. Toms then grabs a lamp to defend herself. She says the man’s friends ultimately came to pick him up before police arrived.
ABC 10News has blurred the man's face in the video because at the time of this publication, he has not been arrested for a crime.
"I feel a lot of emotions…starting to realize what really happened,” Toms told ABC 10News on Monday.
"He came after her and he came after me…it's a life or death situation. All he has to do is just punch me one time and I'm knocked out or I could possibly die. That's it. I had to find an equalizer which was a lamp,” she said.
"Right now I have bruises on my leg, my hip…my shoulder on my left side hurts,” she said.
Toms says she's been leaning on support from her friends and support from social media. The video has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on different platforms.
“If anything, take some self defense classes. I don't want anyone to get harmed because there are people like him out there in this world that you really have to watch out for,” she said.
Toms says she filed a police report on Monday morning and plans to press charges.
Comments online suggest the man is a Marine. ABC 10News reached out to Camp Pendleton about the incident. The base replied with the following statement:
"We are aware of and are actively investigating a video on social media of an incident potentially involving a Marine. The Marine Corps remains committed to holding its Marines to the highest standards and will not tolerate any violation of our institutional core values."
