A California man met the Grinch up close and personally during this Christmas holiday. While shopping in the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, California, he was a victim of a beating, a robbery, and then a car crash — in one perpetrator’s car.
Absalom Wilkins was attacked and robbed at gunpoint by three people in a parking garage as he was leaving the mall on the evening of Saturday, Dec. 23.
He told KTLA he was carrying shopping bags outside of the mall around 9 p.m. when an SUV ran a stop sign and almost hit him as he crossed the road. When Wilkins walked over and knocked on the window of the vehicle to admonish the driver for his carelessness, the man got out and began arguing. Then, a BMW with a man and woman inside pulled up to the scene, and the two men attacked him.
“I’m here shopping at Del Amo mall, and look what happened to me. I was a victim of a robbery, at gunpoint, and almost died,” said Wilkins in an interview with NBC Los Angeles, adding, “Dude just starts taking off on me bam, bam, bam, knocks me on the floor… I’m literally on the floor protecting myself.”
Wilkins said he was pistol-whipped, kicked, and punched as the trio seized all his belongings — among them, a new phone and gifts intended for holiday generosity.
“[The guy] punches me like I was a punching bag,” the South Bay Area man said to Fox LA. “Before you know it, I’m getting jumped by him and the guy in the SUV.”
Wilkins said when he begged the robbers to give him back the items he purchased, one of the robbers snapped at him, “Shut up before we shoot you, homie, shut up before we shoot you!”
Shortly after the threat, police sirens could be heard, and the two men jumped into the SUV. As the woman got into her car, so did a busted-up Wilkins.
“I wasn’t thinking because I hopped in the car so fast. I just had my blood pumping. I just had an adrenaline rush. I just wanted my stuff back … She lost control of the car, and she crashed, like legit crashed, and went down to the parking structure like two floors,” he recalled.
The woman then hopped out of the car and escaped the scene, leaving him in the car with an additional injury, head trauma from cracking the windshield during the crash.
Wilkins sustained multiple injuries, including a concussion from the accident. Pictures show his eyes bruised and bloodied and lacerations across his forehead and nose.
He was eventually hospitalized. The experience was “traumatizing,” according to Wilkins.
“I was fearing for my life. Especially when you’re getting up, and they’re saying they’re going to shoot you. It was sad, traumatizing, scary. I couldn’t stop crying. When my family saw me, they couldn’t stop crying,” he said to KTLA.
Brittany Dominguez has set up a GoFundMe and hopes to raise money to help Wilkins with his medical bills and replace some of the stolen items.
After five days, the model has raised less than $1,000 of the $20,000 goal.
The Torrance Police Department has launched an investigation into the case and has been unsuccessful in apprehending the three suspects but will continue its search.
