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Ralphs Employee Pepper Sprays Man Who Allegedly Assaulted Woman After Being Asked To Wear Face Covering

MID-WILSHIRE (CBSLA) — A confrontation inside of a Mid-Wilshire Ralphs grocery store turned hostile after a man refused to wear a face covering.

Man Pepper Sprayed Ralphs
(Cell phone video)

Witnesses said a store employee told the man he had to wear a face covering or leave the store as required by Los Angeles County. That's when he started ramming the woman with a shopping cart, and a worker used pepper spray to incapacitate the man and called the police.

"I was just coming down to the end of an aisle and all of a sudden I heard some commotion and people were getting in the aisle," a witness said. "I looked down there and there was this guy just yelling at someone, and then all of a sudden you see him, you know, take the handles of his cart and just try to ram this woman."

The witness said the man continued screaming at the woman while he pushed his cart into her. She also said she saw another woman try to push the man out of the way.

"I think he was just screaming about the mask," she said. "He didn't want to wear a mask."

Cell phone video taken moments after the incident unfolded at the Ralphs in the 200 block of South La Brea Avenue shows the man sitting on the ground, surrounded by milk.

Paramedics took the man to the hospital as a precaution.

It was not immediately clear if he will face any criminal charges.

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