On the second day of the Fall semester, a Gainesville woman was attacked Tuesday afternoon in broad daylight while walking her Chihuahua.
The woman, who is in her 40s, told police that at about 3:30 p.m. while she was with her dog at Bivens Cove Apartments, 3301 SW 13th St., she saw a man run into the nearby woods, said Gainesville Police spokesperson Officer Ben Tobias in an email.
As she continued walking along the woodline, the man snuck up behind her and hit her in the head with a bottle, Tobias said. He then asked for her money, and she told him she didn’t have any to give.
The woman’s Chihuahua then bit the man’s leg, causing him to run away back into the woods, Tobias said.
She told police the man smelt strongly of alcohol and appeared homeless. She also said the man was Hispanic and was between 5’7’’ and 5’9’’ in height.
Officers searched the woods near the apartment complex and find nothing, Tobias said.
At 12:43 p.m. Wednesday, UF released a Timely Warning of the crime, citing that it occurred just south of the UF Tanglewood Housing area, where a number of graduate students and students with families live.
For 22-year-old Kristen Kempfert, who just moved into Bivens Cove on Aug. 7, the news was unsettling.
This was the first time she’s ever read a UF alert about her own neighborhood, she said.
Kempfert, a UF horticultural sciences senior, said she was shocked by the news but doesn’t want Bivens Cove to have a bad reputation for what she hopes was an isolated incident.
“While you hope these things never happen, you always want to be prepared,” she said.
The details of the crime also struck Kempfert because she, too, owns a dog.
She takes Taro, her 18-month-old Labrador mix, out for a walk in the neighborhood three to four times a day — including Tuesday afternoon, about an hour after the attack happened, she said.
Kempfert said she’ll have to take extra precaution.
“I typically carry pepper spray regardless, and I don’t listen to music while walking at night,” she said.
