A Houston woman was making a routine shopping trip recently when a man got in her personal space. Danielle M. Blakey (@dmblaakeyy) says she was returning an item to the Galleria, a mall in Houston, Texas, when a man appeared.
“This guy looked me up and down and was like, ‘You’re really pretty,'” Blakey recalls in a TikTok about the experience.
Blakey says she ignored him and kept walking. He wasn’t done, however.
According to Blakey, he made a U-turn and approached her again.
“[He] grabbed my wrist and was like, ‘I said you’re really pretty. I want your phone number. Give me your phone number,'” Blakey says.
By then, she’d had enough.
She says she told him, “You better get the [expletive] off of me. Stop touching me right now.”
The man let her go and looked really confused, she says.
Blakey continued on her way to make the return and put the incident out of her mind. But as she walked, she kept getting that creepy feeling that someone was following her.
It turns out, her intuition was right.
A shopping trip turned wake-up call
Blakey says she tried to ignore that nagging feeling in the back of her mind. She made her return and left the mall, heading for the parking garage.
Then she turned.
“I looked over my shoulder and saw that same guy, he was probably 30 steps behind me, about to walk into the parking garage,” she recalls.
Luckily, there was a security guard nearby.
“[I said], ‘Hey there’s a guy behind me. He like grabbed my wrist, I feel really uncomfortable, can you walk me to my car?'” Blakey says.
The security guard walked her to the car, and she left without further incident.
Now Blakey is grateful she paid attention to her intuition.
“Good reminder that something could’ve happened and it didn’t because I listened to my gut instinct and I was being aware of my surroundings,” she says.
A familiar fear
Women are far more likely than men to report being harassed and/or assaulted. Eight out of 10 women and four in 10 men report experiencing this in their lifetimes.
Being grabbed and followed by a strange man who comments on your looks and demands your contact information, as Blakey was, certainly meets with most definitions of assault and harassment.
Blakey’s story resonated with her audience. As of Tuesday, it had nearly 130,000 views and hundreds of comments.
Dozens of the comments blamed the Galleria. One person even called the mall “the most dangerous place in Houston.”
“The Galleria is going downhill fast what is going on,” a person with the screen name Cam wrote.
Said another, “This is why I don’t go to the Galleria anymore. It’s freakin insane there.”
Simon Malls, which owns the Galleria, did not respond to an inquiry sent via the contact form on its website early Monday afternoon.
Others offered advice, such as carrying a weapon of some kind.
“You should not have gone to your car,” urged one person. “He can easily take a picture of your vehicle and license plate, and track down where you live.”
Blakey didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry sent via TikTok direct message.
@dmblaakeyy not posting for pity – literally just as a reminder to always be cautious.
♬ original sound – dmblakey
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