In a viral TikTok video, a woman films an aggressive stranger following her in Union Square in New York City. At one point, the man even threatens to “slit [her] fucking throat.”
The TikTok was posted on Thursday by @shamsiaaaa and has over 1.1 million views. “It started when I was sitting and minding my business,” her caption reads. “He kept looking. He then asked me, ‘Ma’am are you OK?’ And I said, ‘Who, me?'”
The video clip shows the TikToker walking away and the man following behind her.
“I don’t feel safe because this grown man keeps following me and I got you on camera that you keep following me and if you do something…” @shamsiaaaa says in the clip.
“Bitch, I’ll knock you out,” the man says. “How about that? I’ll knock your fucking teeth out. I’ll slit your fucking throat.”
In the comments, @shamsiaaaa wrote that she was scrolling through social media and was “scared” because each time she looked up, the man was staring at her.
“When he got up something told me to get up and walk away then he came and stood in front of me and I started walking away and I pulled my phone out,” she wrote.
TikTokers sympathized with @shamsiaaaa in the comments. “How scary that we live in a world where women and young girls can’t even feel safe walking down the street in broad daylight,” one TikToker wrote.
“Omg I’m scared for you what the hell,” another person commented.
“She was so scared and there were so many people around her that is the scariest part to me that nobody saw that she needed help,” a user added.
In a later TikTok, @shamsiaaaa shares that another woman was laughing at her as she was being followed by the man.
In the TikTok, she said she was sitting down at Union Square Park and trying to meditate while scrolling on social media on her phone. The man sat down from her and asked if she was OK. She said she was OK, and he continued to stare at her. “I was afraid. I was paranoid,” she said in the TikTok.
“When he got up, something told me to get up, start walking don’t look back,” she said. Then, she said, he also got up and followed her. “In this situation, I need to pull out my phone and start recording for evidence,” she said.
She said he eventually stopped following her when she turned right and that she later learned that the man is unhoused. “The thing was I didn’t know he was homeless,” she said. “I was told in the comments section that people know him or see him in Union Square a lot.”
A 2014 survey of 2,000 people in the United States found that 65% of women have experienced street harassment. Of those women, 20% have been followed. A 2020 study found that street harassment can cause increased feelings of anxiety and depression and poor sleep quality.
The Daily Dot reached out to @shamsiaaaa via TikTok comment.
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