ORIGINAL REPORT, SUNDAY AFTERNOON: A woman says she was attacked in The Whittaker‘s garage and has started an online petition to ask the property management to increase security. Her story has been circulating on social media and the victim, Hillary, sent it to us early today:
I was in Whole Foods parking garage at 9:30 am Tuesday. A woman approached me very quickly mumbling something. I stopped like huh? She grabbed my purse and began punching me in the face about 5x. I tried to get my purse; she ripped my keys out of my hand, and I realized she was trying to take my car. I tried to stop her but she began hitting me in the back of the head with my keys. There were 3 women and a man that saw the whole thing but did not intervene. She took off in my car with my purse. The cops came but I was kind of out of it and left to try to track my phone. They never even marked my car as stolen despite that I called police later and asked if they needed more info or what was my incident #? Just no help and transferred to non-emergency line and nobody ever picked up. I called WF and they said there’s no cameras in the garage.
Hillary said she later found her car herself, near the truck stop/gas station at Detroit SW and 1st South. Her online petition is directed to Kimco, the current managers of The Whittaker’s retail spaces, and Whole Foods, the largest commercial tenant; the petition page says in part, “I definitely think that we as a community need to let large profitable companies know that they need to do more to protect their customers and clients.”
ADDED MONDAY AFTERNOON: The police media-relations office was able to find the report for us, though we couldn’t find an incident number (as noted in comments below). Here’s how the officer wrote the report (names were redacted by the media office before the narrative was provided to us):
I was dispatched to investigate a carjacking incident which took place in a parking lot located 47XX Fauntleroy WY SW.
This call came out as:
AUTO THEFT JUST OCC’D VEH DROVE UNK DIRECTION OUT OF PARKING GARAGE
Upon arrival, I observed witnesses with the victim who appeared to be very agitated. I tried to speak with the victim, who per dispatch was identified as XXXXXX, however, XXXXXX did not want any police assistance.
I noticed that XXXXXX had some redness on her nose, but I could not verify if that was a result of an assault. XXXXXX kept on saying “XXX took my car.”
As I attempted to investigate the incident by questioning XXXXXX, XXXXXX decided to leave the scene without providing me with any information.
I could not verify if the suspect had permission to drive XXXXXX’S vehicle.
Due to the lack of information I was unable to determine if there was probable cause to arrest the unknown suspect. XXXXXX had stated that her bag and cell phone were in the vehicle.
I spoke with two witnesses regarding the incident. The first witness identified as XXXXX, stated that he observed XXXXXX and the suspect exchanging punches. XXXXX stated that it appeared that the two parties knew each other, but he could not say for sure. XXXXX stated that the suspect entered the vehicle and drove away.
I spoke with the second witness identified as XXXXXX, who stated that XXXXXX had been in a yoga class with her, and they were walking to their cars in the garage when the incident occurred. XXXXXX stated that she observed when the suspect approached them from the garage elevators, and upon reaching XXXXXX began to assault her. XXXXXX stated that she was afraid to intervene and because it all happened so fast, she was not able to get a better description of the suspect. XXXXXX stated that the suspect entered the vehicle and drove away.
The incident is classified “suspicious circumstances” in the SPD system, incident # 21-290889. P.S. Hillary described the woman as “white, 5’7”, about 170 lbs, brown hair pulled back, in sweat pants.” The archived radio exchanges we listened to last night added the details of purple sweatshirt and black pants, apparently from the witnesses.
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