Temple Student Assaulted In Broad Daylight Speaks Out
By Jan Carabeo
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Three Temple University students were just minding their own business Wednesday when they were randomly attacked on Broad Street.
Fortunately, one of the women was aware enough to realize trouble was headed her way, and she narrowly escaped a brutal attack.
"He yelled at me that he was going to punch my face before he actually did it. So, thank God I kind of looked up and saw him coming," Temple student Breland Moore said.
Moore is a senior at Temple University, just 43 days away from graduation.
She thought she'd made it all four years without incident, but that all changed at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.
"So, I ducked and tried to run away as fast as I could," Moore said.
As rush hour traffic whizzed by, other students weren't so lucky. The University says the man made his way south, down Broad Street and attacked two more women.
The one girl was spit in the face. The other girl was knocked down and the suspect shoved her in the side of the building.
The account is just another disturbing story for a campus already on edge.
The latest incident comes only weeks after a series of attacks near Temple, one where a student was hit in the face with a brick just off campus.
Police suspect a group of teenage girls in that incident.
And now many students say they're not surprised by continued violence.
"It's kinda unavoidable," freshman Steve Engle said.
"It makes you kinda disappointed to hear that," freshman Michael Wellstein said.
The suspect in the Broad Street attack was quickly caught by nearby campus police and is now facing harassment charges.
Still, it's not back to normal for Breland.
"I definitely have an uneasy feeling about being there right now," she said.
After her attack, Breland tweeted about it.
She says she did this to let her campus community know what happened since the school didn't put out an alert.
Temple says it only alerts students when they need to take immediate action and since this suspect was apprehended quickly, there was no additional threat to the student body.