ATLANTA — A Clark Atlanta student seen in a viral video in a chokehold shared the story of what led up to the attack. The suspect, a Morehouse student, has been charged.
“It all happened so fast,” Clark Atlanta senior Kayla Bryant told Channel 2’s Candace McCowan.
In a video seen millions of times, you can see a man with Bryant in a chokehold outside her apartment Thursday evening, shouting “I’m not the one!”
“I felt it getting tighter and tighter and tighter until I was lifted up off of the ground and I could not breathe whatsoever,” Bryant said.
Bryant said she had never seen 21-year-old Matthew Forestine until moments before the video when Bryant said the suspect and his girlfriend sat in front of her on a shuttle.
“They are kissing and stuff,” said Bryant. “I was probably like that’s gross and then I continued singing and then I sit down.”
Once the shuttle stopped on Luckie Street NW, is when Bryant said the suspect stepped on her shoe as they were getting off the shuttle. She said she asked him to apologize and that led to a back and forth between Bryant and the suspect’s girlfriend.
Seconds later, Bryant is on the ground. And that is where the video shows the moments all 90 pounds of her is picked up off the ground while in a chokehold.
“I was praying in my head, I hope that someone gets involved in order to relieve that pressure on my chest on my neck,” said Bryant.
Bystanders did get the man off Bryant. Morehouse called the behavior completely inconsistent with their mission, values and expectations.
Forestine is now charged with aggravated assault and terroristic threats.
Bryant is still shaken by what happened.
“I can’t understand the violence I just know that you really wanted me to die,” she said.
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