Olympic medalist Kim Glass recounts being assaulted outside LA restaurant
By Stella Chan and Susannah Cullinane, CNN
A Team USA Olympic medal winner says a man attacked her outside a Los Angeles restaurant, hurling a metal object at her and fracturing her eye socket.
Kim Glass, a 2008 volleyball silver medalist, posted a video to social media describing her ordeal. The footage shows her right eye swollen and bruised, with a line of stitches below her eyebrow.
Glass said she was saying goodbye to a friend after lunch in downtown LA when she said a “homeless man” ran up.
“He had something in his hand on the other side of the car in the street and he just kind of looked at me with some pretty hateful eyes and as I turned to go tell my friend, ‘I think something’s wrong with him, I think he’s gonna hit the car,’ before I knew it, a big metal bolt, like a pipe, hit me in my eye. Hit me here, here. It happened so fast — he literally flung it from the street so he was not even close to me at all,” she recounted.
Glass said her friends and strangers held down the man until the police arrived.
The suspect was arrested and charged with felony assault in the attack, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office announced in a news release Tuesday. Conviction on the charge carries an 11-year prison term according to the DA.
CNN was unable to identify immediately an attorney for the suspect.
The Los Angeles Police Department said that officers responded to an assault with a deadly weapon call around 2:30 p.m. on July 8, after a woman was assaulted by a man with an unknown object.
“There were actually multiple citizens that were holding the suspect awaiting police response and he was taken into custody without incident,” Officer Drake Madison, a spokesperson for the LAPD, said.
Officers could not confirm that he was homeless.
Glass was taken to a local hospital. A fitness model and trainer, the former Olympian said in her social media video that her vision will be fine and that she was grateful to her doctor, family, and friends.
“I have amazing friends and family around me and supporting me and that’s been the best part. I do have multiple fractures up here and a small one here,” she said, pointing at her right eye.
Ending the video on a lighter note, she said she was amazed at the durability of her eye makeup.
“And shout out to these eyelashes that have been on ever since. I don’t know who made these but can I get a deal? Because you guys are awesome. Love you guys,” Glass concluded.
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