"He wasn't going to let me off that elevator": Rep. Angie Craig talks about escaping stranger's attack
MINNEAPOLIS – Minnesota Congresswoman Angie Craig is sharing her story after a man attacked her in the elevator of her Washington D.C. apartment building last week.
It's an experience that would shake anyone, and it's also shaping her future decisions as a lawmaker.
"As I think back to being followed onto the elevator and what transpired after, look, I think the whole situation changed the minute he said to me he was coming to my apartment with me. That was the moment that fight-or-flight kicked in. There was no way in hell I was letting him up to my apartment," Craig said. "He wasn't going to let me off that elevator. I had to fight my way off."
Craig says she was punched, grabbed from behind, then eventually choked by her attacker, 26-year-old Kendrid Hamlin.
"I decided right then and there that I was going to fight," she said.
Quick thinking, and a fresh cup of coffee, was all she had to fight him off.
"All I could do was throw my coffee over my shoulder, which startled him," she said.
But that still wasn't enough for her to be able to make an escape.
"As soon as he regained, he came back toward me, and again it was only until we got to the floor the elevator was headed to that I was able to escape, and he was still grabbing at me as I left the elevator," she said. "Only when I got to screaming for help did he run out of the building."
Hamlin was arrested that afternoon. Craig says the experience is now shaping her actions as a lawmaker.
"I'm more committed than ever to working on this intersection of public safety and mental health and addiction and homelessness, and all of the things that this one case really does bring up," she said.
Hamlin had his initial appearance in federal court Monday. He did not enter a plea. He's due back in court Wednesday.
If convicted, Hamlin faces a maximum of 10 years in prison.