The Victim
Posted on 06/10/2022 12:24:43 PM PDT by Impala64ssa
Surveillance video caught a man entering a Phoenix phone store Saturday and brutally beating a female employee working alone behind the counter — punching and stomping on her 25 times in an unprovoked attack.
Even when she screamed she was pregnant as a possible way of getting him to stop, the attacker kept beating her.
The 22-year-old victim asked the man, "How can I help you?" as he approached the counter of the Cricket Wireless store near 43rd Avenue and Bethany Home Road around 5 p.m., KSAZ-TV reported.
The man began to answer and then suddenly punched the woman, landing a total of 16 punches and nine stomps to her head as the victim screamed for her life, begging him to stop.
After the attack, the man went to the back of the store and stole several items and cash, police told the station. The victim was able to run to the next-door business to call for help, but the suspect fled before authorities arrived, KSAZ reported.
Police received multiple tips about the suspect's identity after releasing surveillance video of the attack, the station said, adding that 33-year-old Michael Cook was arrested three days later.
Cook faces multiple charges, including robbery, kidnapping, assault, and criminal trespassing, KSAZ said, adding that he was booked Wednesday into Maricopa County Jail.
Image source: KSAZ-TV video screenshot Cook's mother reportedly told police her son wasn't taking his schizophrenia medication, the station said, adding that police paperwork indicated Cook heard voices in his head telling him to kill himself, so he took his anger out on the victim.
Paperwork also shows Cook admitted to stealing three phones and selling two of them for fentanyl and meth, KSAZ reported.
Tearful victim calls attack 'evil' Maria Coronado spoke to the station Wednesday and said the man — a regular customer — had been watching her all day and waited until she was alone before attacking her.
"You could just hear me screaming," a tearful Coronado told KSAZ. "It just breaks my heart that no matter what I did -- I plead[ed] with him, I even told him I was pregnant just to see if maybe with that he would stop, and he didn't. He just kept on going and going and going."
She also told the station she has "several stitches from my eyebrow to my nose. I have two fractured nose bones, and obviously, my face has a lot of trauma to it."
Coronado added to KSAZ she was afraid the man would kill her if she fought back and called the attack "evil."
"He knew what he was doing," she added to the station. "This was premeditated. He came four times the whole day, just seeing if there [were] customers, if I was alone." Coronado said days before the attack, the man "literally told a manager, 'I’m going to come back and kill you.'"
However, Coronado told KSAZ no one called police about the man's prior threats.
"If they would have said something ... they probably would have caught him, and this wouldn’t have happened," she told the station, adding that she doesn't want to return to work: "It's just scary ... We can't be alone."
KSAZ said it reached out to Cricket Wireless for a statement but didn't immediately receive a reply. A GoFundMe page has been set up to help cover Coronado's medical expenses.
Sounds good to me.
People, especially women, need to carry a taser, gun, anything. I know he attacked quickly and without warning but when someone invades your space use the desk or whatever to keep a distance. Learn some self defense techniques that at least get you away....anything.
I’m really getting fed up with these lawless evil maniacs. They’re going to mess with the wrong people soon. If this were my daughter, I would be hunting this azz down.
Hopefully one among the victim’s family and friends with the resources, skills and courage will discretely admninister the justice this savage beast so richly deserves.
He should be taking cyanide.
But...
NOT A HATE CRIME.
Hate charges only go against whitey.
“ When you absolutely, positively know you won’t be prosecuted.......”
Especially when you think that you are justified because you are told that all white people are racists.
Have you thought about looking for a job at the upper levels of National Intelligence?
I never would have thought of that!
“If they don’t pay, she should sue.”
She should sue regardless.
Somewhere there is a Personal Injury attorney waiting for a phone call.
But but but, he was just turning his life around minus this short detour.
Not long ago, her male relatives would make sure he was very dead soon.
For sure, the perp is a feral waste of oxygen
This has become the excuse de jour for these thugs.
Remember folks, white people are the real racists.
She didn’t stand a chance. If she even for a moment thought why is this black guy coming in my store and should I be scared she would have felt ashamed of being racist. Then she would go out of her way to be vulnerable because any other response would make her a racist.
> No way should a store have only one employee working in the store. In these times, unbelievable. <
It’s not that she was alone. It’s that she was not working behind a hardened position. Old-time pawn brokers had a wall of wire fencing between them and their customers. That was a good idea.
Another good justification to be armed and to have some high capacity magazines.
It was a statement of fact in a more direct way than all of the other perp is obviously dark complected. That doesn’t make you any smarter.
Cook’s mother reportedly told police her son wasn’t
taking his schizophrenia medication
This has become the excuse de jour for these thugs.
***********
Good cause for an extended sentence and no early release.
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