“As I was leaving lunch, I was outside and I was saying goodbye to a friend, and this homeless man ran up,” Glass said in the video. “He had something in his hand on the other side of the car in the street.”
Glass said the man looked at her with “hateful eyes” before attacking.
“And as I turned to go tell my friend I think something’s like wrong with him, and I think he’s gonna hit the car, before I knew it, a big metal pipe hit me,” she said. “It just happened so fast.”
According to the Los Angeles Police Department, officers responded to Olive and 8th streets around 2:30 p.m. after reports were made. Bystanders were holding the suspect on the ground before officers arrived, who was identified as 50-year-old Semeon Tesfamarian before he was taken into custody.
Police did not immediately confirm whether Tesfamarian was homeless.
In the video, Glass’s right eye is bruised and completely shut from the swelling. She said doctors also gave her stitches above her eye.
“Guys just be safe out there, keep your head in the swivel and off your phones,” she said. “I wasn’t but I still wasn’t ready for it, and there’s a lot of mentally ill people on the streets right now and shouldn’t have to be fearful when you walk, but it’s true.”
According to the last homeless count, the City of Los Angeles has more than 41,000 homeless people on its streets and more than 66,000 countywide. The 2022 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count results will be released in early September, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.
