An 18-year-old college student was grabbed from behind, slammed to the floor, and choked unconscious inside a Hollywood 7-Eleven after two strangers followed her in for a gold chain she offered to give them freely. The entire attack was captured on store cameras. The suspects are still at large.
Destiny Valderrama and two friends had just left a quinceañera late Friday night when they stopped for snacks at the 7-Eleven near Hollywood Boulevard and Las Palmas Avenue shortly after midnight. Surveillance video shows a man and woman crossing the street behind them and walking in seconds later. They never made it past the ATM.
“As soon as I felt the tugs to my chain, I knew that’s what they were trying to get,” Valderrama told local reporters. She said she begged them: “I’ll give you the chain. Just don’t hurt me.” They kept going.
A woman in a white sweatshirt yanked her by the hair and threw her face-first onto the tile. A man then joined in, strangling her with her own baptism chain and repeatedly slamming her head into the floor until she blacked out. When she came to, her friends had been beaten as well after trying to intervene. One was dragged across the floor. The other was thrown into the snack aisles. The gold chain and pendant she had worn since infancy were gone.
“They started violently strangling me to take my chain and kept banging my head on the ground,” she said. “I really thought it was just going to be it for me.”
Valderrama said she pleaded with 7-Eleven employees to call police. She says no one did. Instead, staff told the shaken group to leave while she was still on the floor and terrified the attackers were waiting outside. She later tried calling LAPD herself; officers did not arrive that night. She filed a report the next day. A week later she still has scratches and marks on her neck. Her friends remain bruised.
LAPD’s Hollywood Division confirmed a robbery occurred in the 6700 block of Hollywood Boulevard. Two suspects fled. No arrests have been made. Police have not released detailed descriptions of the pair. 7-Eleven did not immediately comment.
Valderrama, a second-year student at Cal State Dominguez Hills, said she still cannot watch the full surveillance video. “It feels like I’m reliving it all over again,” she said. “I’ve never felt more helpless in my life.” She and her family want the attackers identified before they do it again. Anyone with information is asked to contact LAPD Hollywood Division at 213-972-2971.
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