Man exposes himself in Southland parking lot, victim warns others

TAYLOR, Mich. (WJBK) - A woman says she was flashed by a man touching himself in the parking lot of Southland Center in Taylor.

It is an uncomfortable moment for her to relive but she wants to see if anyone else has been victimized - and wants to put an end to his actions before it goes any further.

"I was walking into work like any normal day," she said.
 
The woman, who works at Southland Center, said it happened in the parking lot of the mall in Taylor.  At 3 p.m. a stranger flagged her over to his dark blue or black, four-door sedan.

"Average build, blue eyes," she said. "Straggly straight blond hair, goatee. Kind of scruffy looking."

She says from time to time customers at the mall will ask her questions, so she went over.

"I looked down and saw what he was doing," she said. "(He was) being very inappropriate and touching himself."

Shock flooded her body when she registered what she was seeing - she got out of there.

"To be safe I went around the building but looked back long enough to memorize his license plate number," she said.

She says mall security was informed and she was convinced they would handle it from there. But she couldn't shake the feeling.

"Nobody needs to feel the way I felt that day," she said. "I felt disgusted. I felt violated."

And she started to think about who else could witness such depravity.

"It's a mall. There are 16-year-old girls there, even younger," she said. "And anyone that can do that in the middle of the day, there is something wrong with them. They don't care."

This is why she is sharing her story as a word of warning.

"If you see him just keep walking, there is nothing good that he wants to tell you," she said.

In her opinion he was a determined sexual predator.

"He got my attention," she said. "He stopped his car. He tried to back up; he wanted me to see what he was doing."

Taylor Police Chief Mary Sclabassi said there has not been any reports. The victim handed the case to mall security but now plans to file a police report.

FOX 2 reached out to mall security several times. At first they denied receiving any report of this sex act happening in the parking lot. FOX 2 then spoke with a supervisor who said he could not comment on it and gave the security director's number. FOX 2 reached out but it was after hours and there has been no response yet.