“He had a horrifying look on his face,” witness Dan McIntyre tells Inside Edition. “If I had ever seen demon possession that was it.”
A man sexually assaulting a woman on a California sidewalk in broad daylight was all caught on camera.
Security footage from a market shows a woman passing by a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk, who then gets up and follows her.
Suddenly, he exposes himself, walks up to her, and lifts up her skirt.
The woman, Rebekah Pedersen, then falls to the ground when a good Samaritan jumps in and pepper-sprays the man, making him flee.
“It all happened so quickly but I kinda tried to pull away,” Pedersen says.
The attack happened in broad daylight in Long Beach, California, when Pedersen was getting lunch.
Dan McIntyre, who witnessed the assault, said he was on break when he saw it go down.
“He had a horrifying look on his face,” Mcintyre tells Inside Edition. “If I had ever seen demon possession that was it.”
The suspect, who has been identified as 30-year-old Miguel Avila, was charged with misdemeanor sexual battery, a charge that his victim does not feel fits the crime.
Pedersen tells Inside Edition there is “no question at all” that this was a sexual assault and was “1000% attempted rape.”
After the horrific incident, Pedersen now says she carries a taser for her own safety, even during the day.
