A runner captured on video chasing down a man who exposed himself to her says she turned the tables on him to make him feel afraid.
Aia Polansky says she didn’t hesitate to run the man down after he pulled down his pants as she ran along the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on July 18.
Surveillance video released by Massachusetts State Police shows the unfazed and infuriated 33-year-old former Israeli army soldier sprinting to overtake the unidentified man.
Polansky says that she grabbed the man’s arm and called for help, but the man slipped from her grip and escaped when she reached for her phone to call police as passersby who witnessed the confrontation failed to come to her aid.
The mother of two says the decision to confront the flasher was not difficult.
“I knew that he’s flashing himself to me, the next girl he’s going to grab. The third girl will get raped,” she told The Associated Press. “I knew that if I’m not gonna get him now he’s gonna get away with it and it will happen again. He was forcing himself to my reality.”
Polansky has a message for the unidentified man.
“Climb out of the bed in your mom’s house, go to court on your action. Be responsible for what you did. It’s the stupidest decision you ever made,” she said. “Wrong person to mess around with.”
