Trigger Warning: This article includes discussion of alleged sexual assault, with details.
Bystanders who see a sexual assault in a progress are advised to say something while it’s happening. Well, one woman in Philadelphia took that one step further and disrupted a man who had grabbed and groped a 63-year-old. Not only did she stop the assault from continuing, but she chased the suspect off with her helmet and took pictures of him.
Man flees on foot after woman intervenes during an assault in progress
On September 21 at approximately 4:15 p.m., Mary Martin witnessed an unidentified man in the midst of sexually assaulting a 63-year-old woman near the intersection of 18th and Federal streets in the city’s Point Breeze neighborhood and chose to step in, according to reports from NBC Philadelphia and 6ABC Philadelphia.
A reporter for NBC asked Martin over a video call, “He came up and was humping on her?”
“Yes. Yeah, yeah, he was gyrating against her,” she replied. “He tried to walk past me and a couple other people. I just kept yelling at him.”
In an interview with 6ABC, Martin recalled seeing the victim in distress: “When I saw her face and how upset she was, I was really mad that someone would do that to someone.”
Though she was armed with only a bike helmet, she swung and hit the suspect with it multiple times. Martin explained, “I was hitting him with my bike helmet because I didn’t want him to leave the scene.”
Melissa Repko, a resident in the area who witnessed the incident, was appreciative that Martin had stepped in. She said, “I think a lot of people are also concerned that an individual is doing this in broad daylight, in front of a business that is active and open, that’s not normal. That’s not somebody who’s coming out to be a predator at night. That is somebody who is also suffering “
Martin continued to follow the suspect as he fled on foot, but she then realized that she might be putting herself in danger as well. She said, “I followed him and I realized, ‘You’re putting yourself in an unsafe situation, so get some photos of him, and then go back and check on the woman.”
Woman snapped pictures of the fleeing man, who is still on the loose
The photos she took of the alleged attacker shows a man in a loose white shirt, bright red shorts, and a red rimmed hat that appears to have the ‘P’ logo of the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team on it. The woman provided the photos to detectives, who are still searching for the suspect.
One of the reasons Martin says she intervened was because she learned about the bystander effect, a psychological phenomenon where individuals are less likely to assist a victim when there are other people present at the scene. Several people, including customers at restaurants nearby, saw the incident as well.
She advised others to step in when a victim of sexual assault is in need of help: “If you see something, say something. There’s a lot of power in calling out gross behavior. He didn’t stop because she was yelling; it wasn’t until I, outside the situation, interrupted him and said, ‘What you’re doing isn’t OK.”
She continued, “When we’re living in a city like Philadelphia, we have to look out for each other. So I would just encourage anyone, if you see something, a really easy way to de-escalate it is to call attention to the negative behavior.”
Officials said the unnamed 63-year-old victim was visiting her son in Philadelphia. After Martin returned to the victim’s side, she helped to escort her to a precinct where she filed a report with the Special Victims Unit. Officials also say no one had seen the man in the neighborhood before.
