Homeless man charged for unprovoked attack on woman in Downtown Austin

AUSTIN, Texas (KEYE) -- A woman is sharing her story after she claims a homeless man assaulted her last week in Downtown Austin.

Karli Mitchell regularly walks to work in the area of 6th and Brazos streets. But it's a route she says she no longer feels safe on.

"He wasn't looking at me, we weren't making eye contact. We had no sort of interaction before, it was the most random act of violence. Out of the blue," she said.

It was just last Monday that Mitchell says she was assaulted by a homeless man. It happened while she was walking to her car with a group of people.

"Literally, nothing I could of done to prevent it," explained Mitchell. "I was as aware of my surroundings,

and he hit me on the side of my face. Literally, knocked me off my feet on my back."

The man -- identified as 48-year-old Edward Lincoln McIntosh -- has been booked into the Travis County Jail. He is facing assault with injury charges. He is listed as transient.

The incident follows city council members Kathy Tovo and Ann Kitchen proposing new areas where homeless camping should be banned. That includes most of downtown, West Campus and under city overpasses.

Mitchell says she's grateful that an officer was nearby. "He wasn't running away, and they just walked down the street and got him," she said.

APD Police Chief Brian Manley says his department is seeing more complaints like this. "The word you used embolden, what I have heard from the community is that they are at times embolden. The encounters are at times aggressive," Manley told CBS Austin, in a previous interview.

And Mitchell says it's a scare she's still recovering from. "I was mostly just traumatized more than anything. It's been an emotional journey since," she said