YouTube Star Eden The Doll Says Violent Attack Caught On Video Was Hate Crime, LAPD Investigating
WEST HOLLYWOOD (CBSLA) — Beaten and robbed, a YouTube star and her friends were the victims of a violent attack being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department as a hate crime.
The attack happened early Monday morning when three transgender women were waiting for an Uber in Hollywood. That's when LAPD said a man attacked and robbed them.
"It was absolutely the worst day of my life," Eden Estrada, who goes by Eden the Doll on YouTube, said.
Estrada, who has close to half a million followers on the social media platform, said she believes the attack was targeted. She said that after the three women were robbed, people across the street were yelling out derogatory terms for those who identify as transgender and that was when the man started attacking them.
At one point, Estrada said the man hit one of her friends over the head — knocking her unconscious.
"My friend completely collapsed," Estrada said. "I'm not a doctor. I don't know if she's breathing. I'm trying my hardest to help her. I'm begging people for help. I'm screaming for help."
The women said the man took their cell phones, wallets and purses. And when they were screaming for help, the women said a large group of people were just recording them, not helping or calling police. At one point in the video, people can be heard laughing at the women.
"When I was waking back up, literally all I saw and all I could see were all these lights, people with cameras, laughing at me and telling me that they wish that he had killed me," one of the women said. "They were upset because I was still alive."
Estrada said she was able to get a copy of the video and give it to police after witnesses uploaded it to social media and people tagged her.
"I know that I'm so privileged, because I am a YouTuber and because people know who I am, but this happens all the time to women like me who aren't on social media," she said. "We need this to stop."
LAPD said the investigation was ongoing, and asked that anyone with information about the identity of the man in the video to call police.