A woman says she was attacked for no reason in the restroom stall of a restaurant.
The incident happened at Chuck E. Cheese's restaurant on Hancock Ave. and Los Alamos Rd. in Murrieta.
Nora Reynoso and her boyfriend went to the restaurant Wednesday to celebrate her 2-year-old granddaughter's birthday.
"So I open the door. The door hadn't even closed all the way when I just see a kid rush me," said Nora Reynoso.
"He turns me around and throws me into the stall, the handicap stall, and I hit my head and that was the initial hit, and he was on top of me and at that moment I started yelling," said Reynoso. "I was like, 'This guy, kid, whatever, is going to kill me.'"
Reynoso says she is use to dealing with danger as the owner of Nora's Angelz Bail Bonds. She is trained in self-defense and licensed to carry a weapon.
But the lightning attack caught her off-guard as she received blow after blow to her face.
"I just kept thinking, 'I have to fight. If I don't fight this is it,'" said Reynoso.
Her screams for help were eventually heard by her boyfriend, Carlos Palmerin, a bounty hunter. He rushed in.
"I was expecting her to be hurt, fallen on the ground, or she hit her head or just something like that," said Palmerin. "Never did I think it was going to be a teenager attacking her in the bathroom."
Palmerin grabbed the 16-year-old attacker and held him until police arrived.
An investigation revealed the suspect had hidden in the restroom to lie in wait for a victim.
Reynoso says she's glad she was the one who walked in.
"It took everything I had to be able to survive that, but if it would have been a child or any young teenager, young girl, she would not have been able to even survive it," said Reynoso.
Reynoso says she will never visit a public restroom alone again.
She is recovering from multiple bruises.
Reynoso was in court Friday for her attacker's hearing. The suspect was in court on false-imprisonment, assault with a deadly weapon and kidnapping charges.
The teen is from the Murrieta area.
He remained behind bars Friday.
