A former Olympic volleyball player is recovering after she says she was attacked and brutally beaten by a homeless man in downtown Los Angeles.
Olympic Silver medalist Kim Glass was brutally attacked in downtown Los Angeles by a 50-year-old man identified as Semeon Tesfamarian. According to reports, the incident happened on Saturday afternoon, just as the former U.S. National team volleyball player was leaving an eatery with a friend. As Glass stood on the sidewalk near Olive and 8th street to bid her friend adieu, she noticed that a man she had never met before was staring at her, from across the street, with an enraged look on his face. That's when Glass turned to her friend and warned that the person gazing at them might suffer from mental illness. Then, as if it were right on queue, Tefamarian began to run towards Glass before hurling a metal pipe at her. The assailant hit his target and sent the Olympian down to the ground with her face covered in blood. She suffered multiple fractures in her right eye and a laceration on the upper left side of her nose.
"He just looked at me with some pretty hateful eyes. Before I knew it, a big metal bolt pipe hit me. It happened so fast, he literally flung it from the street, so he was not even close to me at all," Glass said in a video posted to Instagram. "I wasn't ready for it, and there's a lot of mentally ill people on these streets right now."
Fortunately, bystanders who witnessed the horrific assault grabbed the assailant and held him down until the authorities could arrive. He was arrested, and he is still in police custody, but they have yet to determine whether or not he is homeless or the condition of his mental state of mind. As for Glass, she appeared to be in high spirits as she reflected back on the incident via Instagram stories, reassuring her followers that she was okay and cautioning them to be safe out in public so they could avoid a similar occurrence.