BOSTON (WHDH) - A woman says she’s lucky to have escaped serious injury after a run-in with a homeless man who is undergoing a mental health evaluation after allegedly attacking two women in Harvard Square in Cambridge on Tuesday.
Jillian Giguere, 32, says she and her coworker were walking to get coffee when the man sprang out of an alcove along Mass. Ave. and went on the attack.
“He clenched on, grabbed my arm to the point there are bruises of his fingers on my arm,” she said. “He came barreling at me, claiming that he was gonna break my wrists.”
Her colleague, Jaime Martin, said she tried to stop the assault.
“I just told him, ‘Let her go, let her go,'” Martin recalled.
Giguere eventually managed to free her arm and the two women ran to the safety of a nearby bank.
After reporting the crime to the police and a trip to the hospital, Giguere found out that she was not alone.
Officers said that earlier that same morning, the same man charged at another woman with his hand in his pocket and threatened to shoot her near the intersection of Bow Street and Mass. Avenue.
“I absolutely lost it at that moment,” Giguere said. “It was very frightening.”
The alleged attacker was located later in the day and is due to face a judge.
In the meantime, Giguere said that due to her injuries, she is unable to perform her duties as a facilities director at a lab.
Though she is thankful that in time she will make a full recovery.
“This could have been tragic,” she said. “I’m lucky I’m still standing here.”
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