More than four days removed from a violent assault on Belmont Avenue, Nguyen said she is still scared. Several times during an interview about the incident she said it happened so fast, she did not know what to do. Watch video
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Diem Nguyen, the victim of an attack on Belmont Avenue that was captured on security video, said it happened so quickly and she did not know what to do.Clik here to view.
A screen capture from surveillance footage shows an unidentified man approaching Diem Nguyen and her daughter, seconds before attacking them outside a Belmont Avenue store. Police are seeking public assistance in identifying the man.SPRINGFIELD – What Diem Nguyen saw first was the knife.
After working late at her nail salon on Friday and picking up her 4-year-old daughter at the baby-sitter, Nguyen stopped for groceries at Ben Thanh Market on Belmont Avenue at around 8:15 p.m..
And that’s when she was attacked by an unknown man with a knife.
“I was just getting my daughter out of the car and the guy came up. I didn’t see his face; all I could see was the knife.”
Nguyen, 43, is the woman much of Western Massachusetts was talking about over the last few days.
Video of the assault, recorded by the store’s security camera, was released by Springfield police with the hope that someone would recognize the assailant. There was no arrest as of Tuesday evening, but the video itself has gone viral over the Internet. It is being shown on multiple websites, including MassLive.com.
The video shows Nguyen running off camera, leaving her 4-year-old daughter alone with the assailant. For a brief moment, he has his hands on her.
Seconds later, the man follows Nguyen off camera. Seconds after that they both appear as she makes a run for the entrance of the store and he grabs her in the door. It was during this time that Nguyen suffered a slight stab wound to the collarbone area.
More than four days removed from the assault, Nguyen said she is still scared. Several times during the interview she said it happened so fast, she did not know what to do.
A common response from people who have seen the video, once they process the
brutality of the attack, is to criticize Nguyen for running away and leaving her daughter. She said she never ran away, and did not abandon her daughter.
Nguyen said when she saw the knife and the man demanded her purse, she backed away “4-5 steps” into the road, where she began to yell for help.
There was no one out on the street to hear her, she said.
She remembers her attacker yelling “If you run, I’ll kill her.”
Nguyen said it was happening so fast that she did not know what to do. There was no one to hear her screaming in the street, and there were people in the store but they could not hear her. That’s when she kicked off her shoes and ran for the front entrance to the market.
“I ran to the door to get help,” she said.
She described the struggle in the doorway with the assailant as a battle for survival.
She was holding onto the door frame and screaming for people inside the store to come help her, and her attacker is trying to pull her outside. Nguyen said she held on with all her strength because she feared if she was dragged outside, she would be killed.
As she talks, a large bruise is noticeable on her left arm, and a small bandage is visible at her right collarbone. Both are from the struggle in the doorway. She also said she had a large bruise on her upper right thigh.
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Diem Nguyen describes fighting her her attacker in the doorway of a market on Belmont Avenue. She held onto the doorway with all her strength and yelled inside for help as the attacker tried to pull her outside “I don’t know what would have happened if I didn’t get to the door,” she said. “It happened so quickly.”
Her husband, Mot Nguyen, said he was at home waiting for his wife when the owner of the market called him to say she had been attacked.
“I quit everything and immediately got there,” he said.
He said he arrived to find his daughter screaming hysterically, and his wife wearing a blouse that was covered with blood. The daughter was so scared that she did not recognize him when he tried to comfort her at the scene.
He said he asked the store owner to call for an ambulance, and they spent the rest of the evening in the emergency room where Diem was treated for her injuries.
He said has seen the video and it left him terrified.
“It was unbelievable,” he said. “For it to happen to my wife and family was unbelievable.”
He said their daughter could not sleep for a couple of nights, that she would wake up in a panic. Diem Nguyen said their daughter is doing fine now.
The attacker was described by police as wearing a dark-colored jacket over a white T-shirt. He was also wearing white sneakers, a dark baseball cap and jeans with white embroidering on the rear pockets.
People with information are asked to call the Springfield Police Detective Bureau at (413) 787-6355. Anonymous text messages may be sent to CRIMES (274637); begin the message with the word SOLVE.
Diam Nguyen said she hopes the man is apprehended.
“I hope they catch that guy. That guy is really dangerous,” she said.