A woman identifying herself as the victim of a violent attack inside a Mountain View supermarket has come forward to "set the record straight."

A police report on the Jan. 28 incident stated that the woman confronted a man about how he parked, and that a short time later, inside a grocery store, she slapped him and he punched her in the face.

The woman, who spoke with the Voice Jan. 31 on the condition that her name would not be used in the story, said she was accosted by a man who swore at her, called her "fat," bumped her intentionally and repeatedly with his shopping cart. He ultimately punched her after she tried to defend herself -- all while the two stood in the snack aisle inside the Lucky's at 715 E. El Camino Real, she said.

She said she is suffering from a loose tooth, a sore jaw and a large gash inside her mouth. The police report noted that the woman was bleeding after the punch. She declined to be transported to the hospital, opting to seek medical attention on her own.

The 56-year-old Sunnyvale woman told police that she was punched by a white man in his 30s at about 3 p.m. on Monday, according to Sean Thompson, public information officer for the Mountain View Police Department.

According to the woman and the police report, the incident began outside of the store. The woman said she was sitting in her car, getting ready to enter the supermarket, when the man pulled into an adjacent spot "tires squealing," almost hitting her car and taking up space in two parking slots.

As the two of them were preparing to enter the store, the woman criticized the way the man parked his car, asking him something along the lines of, "Did you really need to park like that?" The man answered, annoyed, in the affirmative, and the woman assumed that would be the end of it, she said.

It wasn't.

They each entered the store with shopping carts, and according to the woman, who said she viewed security footage with a responding police officer, the man can clearly be seen entering the store behind her. Each headed their separate ways.

Shortly thereafter -- the woman estimated about five minutes -- the two met again on an aisle with shelves of chips and other snacks inside the supermarket. It is unclear whether the man went looking for her, but she said when she saw him push his cart past the opening in the aisle, he saw her and he "made a beeline for me."

The woman said the man deliberately ran his cart into her cart. "He said, 'Do you have a problem with the way that I parked?'" He then continued to berate the woman, she said, calling her names not fit for print.

She raised her voice and told him to back off, she said, peppering her instructions with expletives, as well. The man then pushed his cart into her hip, she said. She pushed the cart away and he did it again. Then he came around "with his hands out to try to grab my shirt or my collar," the woman said. "My instinct was to slap him."

That's when the man "doubled up his fist and punched me," she said.

Reached by phone, a store manager said that a clerk reported hearing the man say something about being slapped as he walked out into the parking lot. The woman attempted to follow him to get his license plate number but couldn't get out of the store in time.

There was another man on the snacks aisle at the time of the attack. The woman is certain he saw the whole thing. However, there were no witnesses that came forward to talk to the police. She said she wishes more people in the store had come to investigate the commotion prior to her being punched, and she also wishes that anyone who saw part of the incident would come forward and talk to police.

Thompson, the MVPD public information officer, said anyone can leave an anonymous tip by calling the police department at 650-903-6344.

A report of the incident in another local newspaper stated that the woman sought out the man; it also makes no mention that she felt threatened before slapping the man, even though that information was in the police report.

The woman said reading that report was distressing. "I was fuming," she said. "I was so upset that I started crying. I thought, my God, I was assaulted in a grocery store, and they made it sound like I started the fight."

Mountain View Voice staff

Are you receiving Express, our free daily e-mail edition? See a sample and sign-up for Express.