Woman choked, slammed to sidewalk talks to WFTV

ORLANDO, Fla. — Channel 9's Renee Stoll talked to the woman who was choked and thrown face first onto the concrete in downtown Orlando early Sunday morning.

Monai Willett, 26, said her children could have been without a mother after the incident in downtown Orlando.

"If I had fallen any other way, I could have died," said Willett.

Instead, Willett is left with severe injuries.

"I have a hairline fracture," said Willett.

Willett said she lost around seven teeth in the incident, and chipped another. 

Willett met with detectives on Tuesday.

Investigators had closed the incident, but made it active again after Channel 9's story on Monday, and their meeting with Willett.   

Willett said the man who choked her and threw her to the sidewalk was a man she has seen in downtown Orlando.

The incident happened outside a pizza restaurant and was recorded on a cellphone and on surveillance cameras.

Willett said the man was trying to calm her down as she argued with another person over minor car accident.

"I'm telling him, 'Back off, back off, back off,'" said Willettt.

In the the video she is seen slapping the man three times.
 
"I struck him because I was cornered," she said. "Now, was it right for me to hit him? No."

But what happened after she hit him she said no one deserves.

On video the man is seen choking her until she passes out and then throwing her face first onto the ground.   

"I remember opening my eyes and somebody saying,'You knocked her teeth out,' I opened up my mouth and I checked my mouth," Willett said.

Because Willett blacked out, she said didn't even know she was choked when she described the incident to police.

"I don't even know if the statement was legible," said Willett.

Police didn't arrest the man.

Willett said she wants to see justice done.

Willet is more upset with people on social media saying she got what she deserved.

"If I would have died on that concrete floor I wonder what the message would have been then, 'Oh, she hit him, so it's OK that he killed her," said Willett.

Stoll attempted to find the man in the video but Willett said she isn't sure of his name and police won't release it.

Employees of the pizza restaurant told Stoll that investigators have been back three times since Channel 9's original story aired seeking surveillance video.

WFTV