In a harrowing Twitter account, NCIS star Pauley Perrette told the story of being attacked by a stranger while walking down a Hollywood street on Thursday night. As Perette told her followers the next morning, she was walking to her guesthouse when she was jumped by a mentally ill homeless man, who immediately began assaulting her: “He grabbed me so forcefully, pinned my arm, punched me in the nose, forehead repeatedly telling me he was going to kill me.†Perrette says she felt “terrified and trapped,†and feared for her life. The only thing she could think to do was tell her attacker he had “a beautiful name,†at which point he stopped punching her and told her, “Get the fuck out of here,†leaving her in a state of shock.Â
Perrette eventually called the police, who arrested the alleged suspect, a homeless man named David Merck. On Monday, Merck was charged with making a criminal threat and false imprisonment by violence, both of which are felonies. In her account of the attack, Perrette called for more to be done to help the homeless: “We need full mental health care. We need housing and help for the homeless. We need to support our cops. We need to not walk alone. I need to heal.â€