A New York woman has gone viral on TikTok after sharing the frightening encounter she experienced in Manhattan’s Union Square Park.
In a video posted last week, which now has been viewed over 1 million times, @shamsiaaaa shows footage of herself walking away from a man who she says was following and threatening her.
“Please stay safe out here it is not safe!!!!,” she writes in text on the screen. “I was minding my business and something told me to walk away and I realized I was being followed.”
In the video, @shamsiaaaa shows the unidentified man walking behind her.
“This grown man is following me and I got you on camera that you keep following me and if you do something…,” she is heard saying.
“B***h, I’ll knock you out,” the man yells back.
According to data released by the New York Police Department on Thursday, crime in New York City saw a major spike last month increasing almost 40 percent from January 2021 with a total of 9,566 crimes being reported to authorities.
The data saw crime rates increase in every “major crime category” except for murder, which which fell by 15.2 percent.
“The NYPD‘s leaders are working around the clock, in tandem with their federal and state law enforcement partners, and with the city’s five district attorneys, to devise comprehensive crime fighting measures, build solid criminal cases, and achieve meaningful consequences for crimes that tear at the fabric of the city,” said a statement from the department.
As the video continues, @shamsiaaaa captures the man continuing to threaten her saying, “B***h, I’ll knock your f***ing teeth out, I’ll slit your f***ing throat, how about that?”
People in the comment section of the video were concerned about the behavior exhibited in the video and asked her for an update on how she was doing.
One person commented, “She was so scared and there were so many people around her [sic] that is the scariest part to me that nobody saw that she needed help.”
In a follow-up video, @shamsiaaaa shares more context about the events leading up to the moments she caught on camera.
She explains that while sitting in the park she noticed the man staring at her from across the way.
Andrew Burton/Getty Images
“I was on my phone, scrolling, and each time I looked up he’s looking at me.”
She said he addressed her at one point asking if she was OK.
She continued looking at her phone, but the staring did not stop and she began to feel paranoid and started to pray.
“When he got up, something told me to get up, start walking and don’t look back,” she said. “Then he comes and stands in front of me, so I move to the right, he moves to the right. I move to the left, he moves to the left.”
She said she continued to walk and he continued to follow, which is when she started to record. Beyond what is heard in the video, he also threatened to “put a bullet through” the woman.
Eventually, she said, he stopped following her. She remarks that though some people in the comments on her video claim the man was homeless, she was not aware of that.
“I was so scared,” she said.
Newsweek contacted @shamsiaaaa, but has not heard back in time for publication.