AUSTIN, Texas — An employee at a store in southeast Austin is asking for the public's help after a man walked in and physically assaulted her.
Leslie Lowdermilk said on Friday, June 30, a man walked into the shop she works at. She said he he ignored her greeting and interactions, raising red flags for her and her coworker.
She said the man turned to her and once she got a better look, she noticed he had a swastika tattooed on his forehead and SS bolts, a common white-supremacy symbol, also tattooed on himself.
"I had a very brief conversation with my coworker and decided we needed to ask him to leave. I told him as politely as possible that we don’t serve white supremacists and he would have to leave," Lowdermilk said.
She said he escalated quickly and began yelling and screaming at her, so she fake-dialed 911 because she said that has usually been enough to make someone leave in her past experience. She noted things got worse, so soon after she called the police.
"He continued to yell and scream and pushed over the display rack, then threw it at me. He then walked toward my coworker and then came back at me and got right up in my face trying to use his height to intimidate me. I’m 5 feet, 1 inch, and he was easily 6 feet, 2 inches. I have no idea how I managed to not react," Lowdermilk said.
Lowdermilk said she had to hang up the phone because she couldn't attend to both the police and the altercation at the same time. She said the man went towards the door but came back in and shoved her to the ground, as seen in the security footage below,
"I landed in the corner at our front window and a glass display cabinet. I was extremely lucky I didn’t land on the display case or I would have been seriously injured," Lowdermilk said.
KVUE has reached out to the Austin Police Department (APD) for more details on the incident. Lowdermilk said police called her back and she asked someone to come and get a statement. She claims an officer didn't show up until three hours later, but she did file a report with authorities.