Reporter's Notebook: Woman Intentionally Ran in Front of My Car

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- My normally quiet drive in to work was anything but that early Wednesday morning.

I live in a southeast St. Cloud neighborhood not far from the radio station. I go in to work at 4:30 a.m. every day, so most days I don't see anyone else out and about as I head into the office.

However, that was far from the case on Wednesday morning. I had just left my house and turned the corner just a block and a half from my home when I noticed a woman walking on the sidewalk. She was all bundled up in a snowsuit, boots, hat, and gloves.

She was walking on the sidewalk coming towards me. However, just before I was about to pass her she jumped across the boulevard and ran out into the street intentionally running right in front of my vehicle. As I swerved to avoid her she dodged again trying to get in front of my vehicle.

Fortunately, I avoided hitting her but it was close. We even made eye contact as I passed by. It all happened very quickly and I wish I would have had a dash cam to capture it.

When I got to work (still very rattled by the encounter) I posted a message about it on my neighborhood's private Facebook page. Surprisingly, several other people in my neighborhood started commenting that they had had similar encounters presumably with the same women. Some of my neighbors say it's happened to them more than once.

I have reported it to the police department, and I encouraged my neighbors to do the same. The Community Service Officer was very helpful and asked some follow-up questions. She said they'd put some extra patrol officers in the neighborhood, but I'm not sure there's much more they can do.

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No one in our neighborhood seems to know who this person is, or what she's thinking. Hopefully, the police can track her down and get her the help she needs before someone actually does hit her when she intentionally runs out into the street.