TAMPA POLICE CRITICIZE ASSAULT VICTIM FOR HUMILIATING HER ATTACKER INSTEAD OF FILING CHARGES AGAINST HIM

Alisha Hessler made Gabriel Urena sit at a busy intersection for eight hours wearing a dunce cap and holding a sign with bold lettering which read ‘I beat women. Honk if I’m a scumbag’

Tampa police criticized Hessler for taking the law into her own hands. According to the Daily Mail, a spokeswoman for TPD said, “We responded to her home. She did have visible injuries. The officer initiated a report for battery, and rescue personnel transported her to a local hospital.” When, after the initial investigation, they told the victim to bring her medical records to detectives so they could determine if he was to be charged with a misdemeanor or a felony, she stopped returning their calls.

WOMAN CHOOSES TO EMBARRASS ACCUSED ATTACKER BY MAKING HIM HOLD SIGN SAYING, ‘I BEAT WOMEN’
By: Alex Hobson

Scripps Media
December 18, 2013

TAMPA, Fla. - He sat on a stool in a dunce cap, puzzling Tampa drivers for hours with a sign that read: "I BEAT WOMEN. HONK IF I'M A SCUMBAG," boldly written in black marker.

"He's doing it because he doesn't want to go to jail," Alisha Hessler said.

Hessler, 20, put him up to it.

She says she met the man Saturday night when friends of hers brought him along to go clubbing. But on the way home, Hessler says he started making unwanted sexual advances toward her in the backseat of the car. She says she asked him to stop, then hit him when he didn't.

"That's when he started beating me repeatedly until I had a broken nose and a concussion," Hessler said.

Sunday morning police were called to her house and a police report was filed. Hessler was taken to the hospital for her injuries.

But in a peculiar turn of events, she decided to not press charges. Hessler found the man on Facebook, who we're choosing not to name given the circumstances, and gave him the following ultimatum.

"I can either press charges and have you arrested for a year or I can have you sit outside at a busy intersection for eight hours holding up a sign that says I beat women," Hessler said.

Mindy Murphy, the CEO of The Spring, couldn't believe her eyes.

"There's so many problems with this," Murphy said. "Women die every day at the hands of abusers. Sexual assaults occur every day. The fact that we've got a guy sitting in a dunce cap with a sign on the side of the road really is trivializing a serious issue," she said.

Tampa police tell ABC Action News that Hessler has stopped returning their calls.