A Routine Walk Through Downtown Los Angeles Turns Into a Fight for Survival

https://abc7.com/post/suspect-arrested-for-pushing-man-under-truck-in-downtown-la/4841569/

Albert Davtyan was doing something thousands of people do every morning in downtown Los Angeles.

He was simply walking down the sidewalk.

It was shortly after 10 a.m. on December 5, 2018. Businesses were open, pedestrians were moving along West 6th Street, and vehicles were passing through the busy downtown corridor.

Nothing about the scene suggested that one pedestrian was seconds away from suffering life-threatening injuries.

Surveillance footage shows a man in a bright lime-green jacket sitting beside the sidewalk. People walk past him. At one point, he appears to startle a woman before sitting back down.

Then Davtyan approaches.

The seated man suddenly rises.

He lunges toward Davtyan and sends him off the sidewalk toward the street.

At almost exactly the same moment, a box truck is arriving.

The driver brakes.

There is almost no distance available.

Davtyan disappears beneath the front of the vehicle.

The entire attack lasts only seconds.

But the surveillance camera captured enough detail to help authorities find the man prosecutors would later identify as Garrett Joseph Boldt.

And what initially appeared to be one inexplicable act of violence would soon become part of a larger series of allegations involving three separate pedestrians in downtown Los Angeles.

A Morning Walk Near Broadway

The attack happened on December 5, 2018, in the 300 block of West 6th Street near South Broadway.

ABC7 obtained surveillance footage showing the moments leading up to it.

The location is important because this was not an isolated rural road or empty parking lot. It was a downtown sidewalk in broad daylight.

Davtyan had no obvious reason to expect danger from the stranger sitting nearby.

ABC7 reported that the man in the lime-green hoodie was initially sitting outside watching pedestrians pass.

The surveillance footage even shows him making a sudden movement toward a woman before Davtyan arrives.

Then Davtyan enters the camera's field of view.

The man gets up.

He moves toward him.

And without any visible prolonged confrontation beforehand, Davtyan is knocked from the sidewalk and into the path of the truck. Police and prosecutors later described the incident as apparently random and unprovoked.

That lack of buildup is precisely what makes the recording so unsettling.

There is no argument for viewers to follow.

No fight develops.

No confrontation escalates over several minutes.

The danger appears almost instantly.

The Truck Driver Has Almost No Time

One of the most important people in the footage is also someone who had nothing to do with the confrontation.

The truck driver.

From the driver's perspective, the situation develops in an instant.

A pedestrian who had been safely on the sidewalk suddenly falls into the roadway immediately ahead of the vehicle.

ABC News reported that the driver slammed on the brakes, but Davtyan was still caught beneath the truck's front wheel.

The truck therefore becomes part of the incident without its driver having chosen to be involved.

That detail demonstrates why the timing of the push was so dangerous.

Sending someone into an empty roadway would already create the possibility of serious injury.

Sending someone into the street precisely as a large vehicle arrives creates an entirely different level of danger.

Davtyan suffered a collapsed lung and multiple broken bones.

He was transported to a hospital in critical condition.

For a few seconds of surveillance footage, the physical consequences were enormous.

Then the Attacker Simply Walks Away

What happens immediately afterward is almost as striking as the push itself.

According to ABC7's description of the footage, the suspect looks toward the injured man and then walks away.

There is no visible attempt to help.

No effort to flag down emergency services.

Prosecutors later added another allegation.

They said Davtyan dropped a bracelet during the incident and accused Boldt of taking it. That allegation became the basis of a misdemeanor petty-theft charge.

This small detail would eventually sit beside much more serious charges.

But first police had to determine who the man in the lime-green clothing actually was.

At that moment, investigators had something extremely useful.

They had video.

And the clothing visible in it was difficult to forget.

A Bright Green Jacket Becomes an Identifying Clue

The surveillance recording quickly reached local television.

That changed the investigation.

ABC7 aired the footage.

Less than an hour later, Los Angeles firefighters saw a man they believed matched the person shown in the recording.

The bright clothing stood out.

Firefighter Austen Johnson later specifically recalled the neon-colored jacket, baggy pants and the man's demeanor.

The firefighters spotted him near Hill and Third streets and called 911.

This is one of the most remarkable elements of the entire case.

The surveillance system did not identify the suspect automatically.

The television broadcast did not arrest anyone.

The breakthrough came when people who had seen the recording encountered someone whose appearance matched what they remembered.

A camera recorded the incident.

A news station distributed the image.

Firefighters recognized the person.

Police made the arrest.

Several independent pieces of the city effectively formed an identification chain.

Prosecutors Say This Wasn't the First Attack

Once authorities identified the suspect as Garrett Joseph Boldt, investigators connected the West 6th Street incident with additional allegations.

According to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, the sequence began the previous morning.

On December 4, prosecutors alleged that Boldt tackled a woman to the ground around West Seventh and Hill streets.

Then came the attack on Davtyan the following morning.

But prosecutors said the violence did not stop there.

Later on December 5, Boldt allegedly punched another woman at a bus stop around West First and South Hill streets.

Police arrested him nearby soon afterward.

The District Attorney's Office described the alleged attacks as appearing to be random and unprovoked.

That context changes how the surveillance footage can be understood.

Viewed alone, it shows one shocking encounter.

Viewed alongside the charging allegations, prosecutors believed it belonged to a pattern involving three victims over roughly two days.

The Man Under the Truck Had a Name and a Life

Initial reports understandably focused on the shocking footage.

But subsequent reporting revealed more about the victim.

His name was Albert Davtyan.

He was a tailor.

Friends and employees at Roger Stuart Clothes told ABC7 that they had known and worked with him for about 15 years.

While the surveillance clip circulated online, people who knew Davtyan were dealing with a very different reality.

He was still hospitalized.

Friends stepped in to help with his work and business while he recovered.

CBS Los Angeles reported several days after the attack that Davtyan remained in critical condition and that supporters had established a fundraiser for him.

That information matters because surveillance footage has a way of reducing people to roles.

“The victim.”

“The suspect.”

“The truck driver.”

But Davtyan had a life completely unrelated to the stranger captured on camera.

He went to work.

He had longtime professional relationships.

People depended on him.

Then a few seconds on West 6th Street disrupted all of it.

The Charges Become Extremely Serious

On December 7, two days after the attack, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office formally announced charges against Boldt.

They included:

• one felony count of premeditated attempted murder
• three felony counts of assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury
• one misdemeanor count of petty theft

Prosecutors also alleged that he personally inflicted great bodily injury.

Boldt pleaded not guilty at his arraignment.

ABC7 reported that bail was set at $1.09 million and that, if convicted as charged, he potentially faced life in state prison.

The attempted-murder charge demonstrates how seriously prosecutors viewed the West 6th Street incident.

The criminal case was not simply about someone knocking another person down.

The allegation concerned the act of pushing a pedestrian directly into traffic as a truck approached.

The surrounding circumstances transformed the legal stakes.

The Surveillance Camera Preserves the Sequence

This case is also an unusually clear example of why sequence matters when interpreting security footage.

Imagine seeing only the final frame.

A man is beneath a truck.

That tells us almost nothing about how he got there.

Now imagine seeing only the previous second.

Two people appear to collide near the curb.

Again, context is missing.

The full recording changes everything.

The pedestrian is walking.

The other man is sitting.

There is no visible extended confrontation between them.

The seated man gets up.

He lunges.

Davtyan goes toward the roadway.

The truck arrives.

That progression was available for police, prosecutors and eventually the public to examine.

It also helped establish that the truck driver was not simply dealing with an ordinary pedestrian accident.

Something happened on the sidewalk immediately beforehand.

Why This Footage Holds Attention So Effectively

From a storytelling perspective, the recording is powerful because the audience initially knows more than the victim.

Once viewers have read the headline, they know something terrible is coming.

Davtyan does not.

He continues walking.

The truck continues approaching.

The man in green remains near the bench.

Those three movements are on a collision course, but only the audience understands it.

Then everything converges.

That structure naturally creates retention because viewers begin anticipating the moment promised by the headline.

After the attack, the story immediately generates new questions.

Who is the man in green?

Will police identify him?

Did Davtyan survive?

Why did this happen?

Was anyone else attacked?

The strongest narrative structure does not answer all those questions at once.

It resolves one and replaces it with another.

That is exactly what the real investigation did.

A Television Broadcast Helps Solve the Identification Problem

Perhaps the most unusual development happens after the footage reaches ABC7.

Police have an image.

The public now has the same image.

Firefighters happen to see the broadcast.

Then they encounter a man whose appearance reminds them of what they just watched.

The lime-green clothing becomes especially important.

They alert authorities.

The suspect is detained.

According to ABC7, the man initially did not have identification and was described as combative after officers took him into custody.

Without the surveillance footage, recognition could have been far more difficult.

Without the broadcast, the firefighters might never have known there was someone to recognize.

The case demonstrates how quickly visual evidence can move from a private security system to television and then back into an active investigation.

The Case Later Took an Unexpected Turn

The initial arrest and charges were not the end of the legal story.

More than a year later, ABC7 reported a significant development.

In January 2020, Garrett Joseph Boldt was found mentally incompetent to stand trial.

Criminal proceedings had already been suspended while his competency was evaluated.

The determination meant the prosecution could not simply proceed to trial at that time.

This point requires careful wording.

Being found incompetent to stand trial is not the same as being acquitted.

It is also not itself a determination about whether the charged conduct occurred.

Competency concerns whether a defendant is legally capable of participating meaningfully in the criminal proceedings against him.

ABC7 reported that if Boldt were subsequently restored to competency, he could still face the charges and potentially a life sentence if convicted.

That later development adds another layer to a story that initially seemed straightforward from the surveillance footage.

The camera can show behavior.

The justice system still has to address questions the camera cannot answer.

The Truck Driver Was Also Pulled Into Someone Else's Decision

There is another person whose experience can easily be overlooked.

The box-truck driver.

Nothing in the reporting suggests that driver had any connection to Boldt or Davtyan.

He was simply traveling along West 6th Street.

Then a man suddenly appeared directly in his path.

The driver hit the brakes.

It was not enough to completely avoid contact.

That person then had to live with having been involved in a devastating collision created by circumstances outside his control.

It is a reminder that one act of street violence can immediately affect more people than the person directly targeted.

The victim suffers physically.

Friends and coworkers respond.

Emergency personnel arrive.

A driver becomes involved.

Witnesses see the aftermath.

Investigators begin working.

A few seconds can radiate outward into dozens of lives.

Davtyan's Survival Is Easy to Lose in the Viral Clip

The surveillance footage became compelling because of how shocking it looked.

But the more important fact is what happened after the recording ended.

Davtyan survived the initial impact.

He reached a hospital alive.

He had a collapsed lung and broken bones and remained critically injured in the days afterward.

His friends rallied around him.

People helped with his work.

The story became about more than catching the person seen in the video.

It became about supporting someone whose normal morning had been destroyed without warning.

That is worth emphasizing because viral footage often ends emotionally at the moment the clip stops.

For the victim, that moment is usually only the beginning.

Hospital treatment follows.

Recovery follows.

Bills follow.

Lost work follows.

Family members adjust their lives.

The internet moves to another video long before the injured person returns to anything resembling normal.

One Camera Changed the Entire Investigation

The camera mounted above that downtown sidewalk did nothing to prevent the attack.

It could not warn Davtyan.

It could not stop the truck.

It could not physically detain the person who walked away.

Yet after the attack, it became enormously valuable.

It preserved the sequence.

It preserved the suspect's clothing.

It provided material that police could distribute.

It gave ABC7 something concrete to show viewers.

And that broadcast helped firefighters recognize a man matching the person shown in the recording.

Less than an hour after seeing the footage, they spotted him.

That is an extraordinarily fast transition from surveillance evidence to public identification.

From a Sidewalk to a Criminal Case

The entire story begins with an ordinary visual.

People walking through downtown Los Angeles.

A man sitting near the sidewalk.

Traffic passing.

Nothing separates this moment from countless others occurring throughout the city.

Then one person stands up.

That single movement changes everything.

Albert Davtyan goes from walking to work to fighting for his life in a hospital.

A truck driver goes from traveling along West 6th Street to confronting a pedestrian suddenly thrown into the vehicle's path.

Firefighters who later see a television report become part of the investigation.

Police make an arrest.

Prosecutors file charges carrying the possibility of life imprisonment.

Friends of the victim step in to keep his professional responsibilities moving while he remains hospitalized.

And more than a year later, the criminal proceedings encounter another major complication when the defendant is found incompetent to stand trial.

All of those consequences can be traced back to a handful of seconds recorded by a surveillance camera.

That is why the footage remains so disturbing.

There is no warning for Davtyan.

There is no obvious dispute he could have walked away from.

There is no prolonged confrontation in which the danger gradually becomes clear.

He is simply walking.

A stranger is sitting nearby.

A truck is approaching.

Then those three elements intersect at precisely the worst possible moment.

And by the time the surveillance clip ends, an ordinary morning in downtown Los Angeles has become a criminal case that would continue for years.