Video: Philadelphia activist assaulted while headed to community event, she says
PHILADELPHIA - A woman is speaking out after she says she was attacked by a group of people while she was on her way to a community event in Philadelphia.
FOX 29 has obtained surveillance video of the incident.
"They're robbing me. They are robbing me," screamed a woman heard on security camera footage as three people move toward her while she screams for help.
The victim says two people took turns pepper spraying her while another held up a cellphone.
"The guys and the girls were like yeah, yeah, you're gonna give it up, trying to hit me, then they were trying to mace me, trying to assault me and I was holding my own," said Taleah Taylor.
Taylor is a community activist who says it happened Saturday around noon when she got off the bus at 33rd and Susquehanna headed to a community event in the park.
She believes she was targeted after posting on social media.
"I put in my stories saying I was coming here which was 33rd and Diamond. I was coming here to give out giveaways. Normally I give out money, different things and this time I was giving out shirts. One Philly shirts. So I do not know if they interpreted it for money," she said.
Taylor says she was approached by three men and two women who got out of a car. The video also captures them kicking her belongings into the street.
"They were surrounding me. The guy had a gun," she recalled.
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Taylor says she was able to stop police who happened to be going by as the assault continued.
"They kept macing me. I could not see anything. The cops they could see all the bruises, the redness on my arms, my whole face. I could not see nothing. I am crying. Everybody is hollering out the windows," she said.
One of those people who heard and saw the incident from her window spoke to FOX 29, but did not want to be identified. The woman says she wanted to help Taylor.
"The police man came to me and he asked to see the footage and he saw it," said the woman. "I think that it should be more people out here that help women when they see them in distress and the men that were out here should have stopped it. I reached out and tried to help her the best that I could. I might not should have did it but it could have been me."
Police say they took a report which is headed to Central Detectives.
The victim says the suspects took her wallet and cellphone during the incident.