(This story was sent to us by Ariella).
Source: Reddit
I was on a run around 6am on NYE. It was dark, but I stuck to residential lit streets in (what I thought was) a safe neighborhood.
I have 3 blocks left, and I pass a man who is walking in the same direction I was running. He turned around and shuffled, almost like how basketball players do when they’re playing defense. My stupid a** gave him the benefit of the doubt as I ran past— “oh I must have scared him coming from behind”.
Nope, the man was pretending to grab me.
I keep running, glance over my shoulder and the man is RUNNING AFTER ME. I screamed and started sprinting, and he stopped and laughed at me, like it was the funniest joke in the world. I shouldn’t have done this, but I started screaming expletives at him.
I kept sprinting, on the verge of tears and luckily I ran into my neighbors walking who walked me the rest of the way to my door. I’m still really shaken, and needless to say I ordered some pepper spray to take with me running from now on.
I posted on the NextDoor app about this, and immediately received a comment and message from a neighbor saying she recognized his description, she had a run in with him one block from where he accosted me and about 5 minutes after on the same morning, and that she called the cops but they were of no help as he disappeared.
Then I decided I won’t stop myself from running so as usual I went for a run. I didn’t see him for a few days. But finally I saw him this morning with a lot of excitement in his eyes. As he pretended to GRAB me this time I just sprayed the complete bottle of pepper spray in his eyes. As he was trying to walk away I followed him with continuous blabbering of cuss words so that I could buy time for the cops to arrive.
FINALLY GOT HIM ARRESTED.
