Assault Victim Speaks Out
Drew Douglas, KY 3 (Springfield, MO), September 4, 2014
“It was pretty brutal,” says Meredith Cole.
Cole and her boyfriend were in downtown Springfield just after midnight on the 22nd of August when they were assaulted outside the Outland Ballroom, where Cole’s boyfriend was working as a DJ that night.
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Cole says she stepped outside the club on her own and was approached by a group of men who began to touch her without her permission.
“It was embarrassing kind of, and weird and uncomfortable, it was really intimidating too,” says Cole, calling the encounter a sexual assault.
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She escaped back inside the bar, and told her boyfriend with whom she is raising a child about the sexual assault. She says they wanted to get a better description of the men for police, so they went back outside the club to look for the men, whom she says were black.
“And then they all just ran up on Alex, and I know I got hit . . . I don’t even remember how it all happened, I hit somebody with my shoe and it was crazy,” recalls Cole.
She’s very adamant the attack was not racially motivated.
“It was about the fact that they sexually assaulted me, it wasn’t about the fact that we’re white and they were black,” says Cole.
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Cole and her boyfriend suffered cuts and bruises, Cole says she also fractured her ankle in the fight.
“I was livid, because I could hardly take care of my kid for like a week. Because with a messed up foot you can’t chase a 16 month old around,” says Cole.
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[Editor’s Note: The video at the original article link below features an interview with Miss Cole.]