3 teenage girls arrested after caught-on-camera assault in Vancouver

A Chinatown resident and her cat were violently attacked by three teenage girls outside her apartment building April 9.

A trio of teenage girls were arrested after an assault on a stranger was caught on video in Vancouver’s Chinatown earlier this month.

Angelina, who did not give her last name, told CTV News she was standing outside with her cat and talking to a neighbour on April 9 when the teens attacked her.

It was around 9 p.m., and the teens were standing at the bus stop outside Angelina’s building on Gore Avenue near Keefer Street. She said she didn’t do anything to provoke them.

“They just looked over and said, ‘What the F are you looking at? Do you have a problem? F you,’” the victim said.

“They just came at me … It happened really quickly.”

The video, which was recorded from inside the building, shows the attackers approaching the porch outside the building, apparently exchanging words with the people standing on it.

Within a few seconds, one of the girls begins punching and kicking the victim, who falls to the ground. At one point, two of the attackers seem to attempt to drag the victim along the porch, though they soon abandon this pursuit.

Angelina said the girls pulled her hair, pushed and shoved her while she clung to her cat, then stomped on her head and kicked her while she was on the ground.

She said she now has staples in one side of her head, and suffered a concussion and whiplash during the attack.

In an email to CTV News, the Vancouver Police Department said the three teens – ages 15, 16 and 17 – were arrested in the Downtown Eastside on the night of the attack.

“They have been released into the custody of their guardians pending a court appearance in June,” the VPD said.

Angelina said the police have been “really great” to work with since the assault, but she remains shaken by the experience.

“I don’t know how long it’ll be until I’m fully able to move around and get back to it,” she said, adding that her cat was “very traumatized” by the incident as well.

“He just hides under the bed now,” she said. “Poor guy.”