The Pretty Little Liars actor Keegan Allen was battered and robbed by attackers wielding a knife and gun in West Hollywood, he said on Thursday in a social media video showing him bloodied and alarmed.

The Los Angeles county sheriff’s department confirmed in a statement shared with news outlets that it was investigating a violent robbery matching the weapons, block and time described by Allen on social media, where users responded with shock and supportive comments.

In his Instagram video, the 37-year-old Allen walked around in what appeared to be a parking lot and recounted being robbed of his watch outside the upscale grocery store Laurel Supply on the 8400 block of Santa Monica Boulevard. “These two dudes hit me in the head, pointed a gun at me with a knife and then took off,” he said, breathless and with blood streaking down the left side of his face and neck.

Allen added that the assailants had masks on, raising a blood-stained hand and reiterating, “They took my watch, though – took my fucking watch. Damn it.”

At one point in his clip, Allen can be heard telling someone else, “Can you call the police?” Allen’s clip also showed surveillance camera footage depicting two men – one with a knife and the other with a gun – sticking him up near the rear passenger side of an open pickup truck. The actor can be seen unclasping a watch from his wrist when the one with the pistol struck Allen in the head twice.

Allen then crouched, covered his head, waved his hands and backed up while the one holding the pistol swung at the actor again, the surveillance video showed. The attackers then ran off.

As Allen put it in a caption alongside his Instagram video, the two attackers “threatened to KILL me over my watch and would have!

“God said no tonight. My life for a watch.”

The Los Angeles county sheriff’s department said in a separate statement on Friday it is investigating the robbery reported by Allen, without naming him.

The sheriff’s department’s statement said the robbers demanded a watch and bracelet from the victim at knifepoint and gunpoint. One of the robbers then pistol-whipped the victim, “causing a laceration to his forehead”, before the attackers fled in a car with “the victim’s watch”, according to the statement.

First responders medically evacuated the victim but did not take him to a hospital, according to the sheriff’s office.

The agency said its major crimes bureau was investigating the case and asked anyone with information about possible suspects to call the sheriff’s office’s West Hollywood station.

Allen’s Instagram post on Thursday expressed a desire for West Hollywood authorities to use Flock Safety license plate cameras to capture the pair who robbed him.

While many cities of late have canceled the use of such cameras amid misuse and privacy concerns, West Hollywood’s city council voted narrowly to keep using Flock cameras, albeit with new safeguards, as the Beverly Press & Park Labrea News reported in July.

Allen also wrote in a reply to his video on Thursday that he was “def concussed and at hospital”.

Among those who replied to Allen’s video on Thursday was singer Gavin DeGraw, who was hospitalized after being beaten up in New York City in 2011, according to various media reports. “That’s so fucked up,” DeGraw wrote.

A reply from the West Hollywood city council candidate Kyle Brazeal said in part: “This is insane, unacceptable and I’m sorry this happened.”

Allen portrayed the character Toby Cavanaugh on Pretty Little Liars during its seven-season run from 2010 to 2017. He also had a role in Walker from 2021 to 2024 and guest starred in February in an episode of the Nathan Fillion show The Rookie.