Woman Publicly Shames Man Who Beat Her Up After She Rejected Him
Alisha Hessler says she'd never met Gabriel Urena before Saturday night.
Hessler, 20 of Tampa, had gone out clubbing with two friends, and they invited Urena to join them.
On the ride home, Hessler says she and Urena were both in the backseat when he began making unwanted sexual advances toward her.
Advances turned to groping, according to Hessler, and she was eventually forced to strike Urena to get him to stop.
"I did hit him first and then all of a sudden that's when he started beating me repeatedly, punching me," she recalled, "until I had a broken nose and a concussion."
The following morning, Hessler phoned the police and asked to file a report, which she eventually did. She was then taken to a nearby hospital, treated, and released.
It was later that night that Hessler had a sudden change of heart.
Hessler found Urena's Facebook, and saw that he had expressed remorse over the beating.
"Lastnight (sic) was a wake-up call," he wrote. "I seriously need change."
Hessler was moved enough to offer him a way out: She agreed not to press charges if he agreed to sit with a dunce cap near a busy intersection for eight hours holding a sign that read, "I beat women. Honk if I'm a scumbag."
Urena agreed.
"I didn't want him to be locked up for a year. I honestly don't think that would teach him anything," Hessler told My Fox Tampa.
The alternative punishment was not well received by battered women advocate Mindy Murphy.
"There's so many problems with this," she told ABC Action News. "Women die every day at the hands of abusers. Sexual assaults occur every day. The fact that we've got a guy sitting in a dunce cap with a sign on the side of the road really is trivializing a serious issue."
Tampa police have attempted to reach Hessler several times since, but they say she has refused to return their calls.
