On Friday, Aug. 18 at 9 a.m., I stopped by the BP station at the corner of Mt. Vernon Highway and Chamblee Dunwoody Road to gas up. After completing my transaction, I put my car in reverse to pull onto Chamblee Dunwoody – a straight shot to GA 400.
As I was backing up, a black or Latino man in a gray SUV pulled up next to me. He had his window down, and when I glanced over to see if he was going to go around me, I saw him looking at me and then I saw it: his fully erect penis, which he was holding in his hand.
Having worked as a journalist for more than four decades, my natural reaction was not to be horrified or disgusted, but to get the facts. He pulled around to the other side of the parking lot, I suppose to share himself with other unsuspecting women, and I pulled around as well to write down his license plate and the make and model of his car – a Volvo XC90. As he left the BP going south down Chamblee Dunwoody Road, I called 911. What happened next was even more upsetting than the event itself.
I told the 911 operator what had happened and gave her a brief description of the driver, the circumstances, and the other details I had written down. The operator asked me if the man was still at the gas station, and I told her he was not and provided her with the street and direction he was traveling. She thanked me for the call. She didn’t ask if I was okay, take down my name or contact info, or let me know if a report would be generated. The call lasted exactly one minute. I was stunned.
But that’s not the end of the story. When I reached my destination, I remembered similar posts regarding a man in a gray SUV on the Next Door app, so I posted my entire experience from the incident to my 911 call and asked if anyone else had experienced, either today or in the past, an encounter with this man. I also wrote that I was deeply disappointed with my 911 encounter.
What happened next was even more demoralizing than the first two events. Commenters, mostly men, said 911 should be reserved for “shootings, car accidents, kidnappings, robberies, etc.,” and a more appropriate avenue would have been to call the Dunwoody police’s non-emergency number.
I was also questioned as to why I was looking into another person’s car. I was told that I should have laughed at him and driven away. I was called out for equating 911 with the police department as they are two separate entities. My recollection of the events was questioned.
After the remarks became heated on both sides, I decided that no good was coming from the protracted debate, and shut down the thread, for which I was again bashed. I explained my reasoning in this way: “You all are missing the point in order to tell me what I was doing was incorrect or that I used the wrong words. I’m trying to get information, not a grammar lesson.”
It didn’t end there. Someone copied my post and started a new thread to defend my actions, saying, “For those who commented on whether what happened to Ms. Cobbs constituted an ‘emergency’ then felt the need to analyze whether her post was worded correctly, shame on you.” And the whole debate was back on – through the night and into Saturday. A side note: the majority of the dozens of comments and direct messages were highly supportive of my actions, but the naysayers continued to make the same assertions listed above.
The best thing that came out of this hate-fest was that two women reported being accosted by the same man minutes after he left the BP station. Even though they gave me permission to use their names, I will refrain, considering what had transpired online over the past 24 hours.
J.G. messaged me: “I saw him too. I was walking on Mt. Vernon, and he was in an SUV. He was making a turn from one of the side streets (Layfield or Ridgeview) onto Mt. Vernon towards Ashford Dunwoody, and when I walked past the vehicle, I saw him j***ing off. I yelled, ‘NO,’ and he drove away.”
J.G. said she was unable to obtain any information about the make or model of his vehicle as the incident “really freaked me out.”
Another woman, N.B., said she was walking her dog on Chamblee Dunwoody Road when a man stopped and opened his door “doing the same thing.”
The driver said something unintelligible to N.B., but she hurried as quickly as possible to get away from him. Neither woman said they would be able to pick out the man from a lineup, and unfortunately, I will not be able to do it either.
A third woman, Susan, messaged me that she had experienced, not one, but two encounters with a man driving a similar vehicle – once three months ago, and then again about a month ago – in the parking lot at the Wal-Mart on Winters Chapel Road.
Susan said she observed him the first time pulling his car up to a woman leaving a store in the shopping center, which piqued her curiosity.
“He said, ‘Hey baby, do you want a ride?’ to the woman who ignored him, and then he made a beeline to my car, which was parked far away from the other cars,” Susan said. “I didn’t even look at him and drove away very quickly.”
The second encounter was in the same parking lot, around the same time, she said.
“He was parked near an out-parcel building and I was thinking that was the same person I saw before,” Susan said. “He pulled up next to me and opened his door. He had an erection, and he was looking right at me. Instead of reacting, I shrugged and drove off, taking a different route home in case he was following me.”
Susan was not able to get the license plate number of the man’s car, but she said the circumstances of what happened to me, and the other women, were too similar to be a coincidence.
And now a better ending to the story. Being a reporter and longtime resident of the city, and frankly unwilling to let it go, I called a city official and my contact in the police department. My case was assigned to Officer Shaw, who couldn’t have been more professional and more apologetic about my experience.
During a late afternoon conversation on Aug. 18, he assured me that calling 911 was appropriate and that the information I provided would be valuable to the Dunwoody Police Department’s investigation.
People who have had an encounter within the city limits regarding this individual are encouraged to call the DPD’s general information number at 678-392-6900 and reference case number 23005961.
Lots of lessons learned – mostly about the poisonous atmosphere that exists on Next Door, tempered by the kindness of the many people on that same platform. Some messages, from both men and women, brought me to tears and reinforced my belief there are good people in the midst of those who want to poison the water for their own pleasure.
I wouldn’t change a thing.
