Kim Glass, Olympic Volleyball Player, Attacked by Man Wielding Metal Pipe
Kim Glass, a model and volleyball player who competed for the U.S. national team in the 2008 Summer Olympics, was brutally attacked by a man in downtown Los Angeles, according to multiple reports. Glass, 37, went to Instagram to describe the incident and show the graphic injuries to her face. In the Instagram video, Glass said a man, whom she described as homeless, attacked her with a metal pipe as she was leaving lunch with a friend on Saturday.
Officers arrived on the scene on Saturday afternoon and saw multiple people holding down the suspect who was taken into custody without incident. Police identified the attacker as 50-year-old Semeon Tesfamarian who is currently in custody, according to the Los Angeles Times. It has not been confirmed if Tesfarmarian was homeless, but Glass said the man ran up to her and threw a metal object.
"He just looked at me with some pretty hateful eyes. Before I knew it, a big metal bolt pipe hit me. It happened so fast, he literally flung it from the street so he was not even close to me at all," Glass said in the Instagram video. "I wasn't ready for it, and there's a lot of mentally ill people on these streets right now." Glass said that she's okay after receiving stitches and multiple fractures in her right eye. But the former Olympic star knows things could have been much worse.
"As much as it scares us and reminds us of the crazy in the world or what we deem bad, that day also reminded me of all the beauty in the world — my friends/fam who had my back and the absolute strangers that came and didn't leave my side. That's the way people are and that's the way community should work," Glass said.
Glass was a member of the U.S. volleyball team from 2007 to 2012 and helped the team win the silver medal in the 2008 Olympics. She also earned a bronze medal at the 2007 World Cup in Japan and a Gold medal at the 2011 Volleyball Grand Prix. Glass played college volleyball at Arizona and was a three-time All-American. In 2017, Glass competed in the MTV reality series The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars.