'Never Give Up': Woman Punches Attacker In Apartment Gym, Video Shows

TAMPA, FL — A woman who fought off an attacker she assumed wanted to work out in her apartment complex's gym urged other women to contact police and speak out if they are assaulted.

"My advice would be to never give up," Nashali Alma, 24, said, in a video released Wednesday by the Hillsborough County Sheriff's office. "As long as you don't give up, you fight back, you show him that you are strong, that you are one, that you're able to fight back and survive and get out of the situation, it's possible."

According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, the attack happened Jan. 22 at a gym in the Inwood Park Apartment Complex and was captured on a security camera.

Alma is seen exercising alone when a man later identified as Xavier Thomas-Jones walks up to the gym door. She let him into the room because she had seen him there before, authorities said.

But Thomas-Jones soon walked up to Alma's weight bench, tried to grab her and she then shoved him away. Surveillance video shows Alma being chased around workout equipment, punching Thomas-Jones as he repeatedly tried to grab her, and the pair falling to the floor, where Alma lands more blows before escaping. (See the video at the bottom of this story.)

“As soon as he was approaching me,” Alma said on the video authorities released. “I pushed him. I said, ‘Bro, what the F are you doing?'”

Alma eventually fought off her attacker, ran out of the gym and called 911.

"I'm grateful that she came forward, I know that her story is going to be an inspiration to other women," said Sheriff Chad Chronister.

“When it was happening, I actually had no fear,” Alma told WFLA. “I am a body builder and I’m actually pretty strong, so in my mind, he was kind of equal to me.”

Investigators tracked the suspect and arrested Thomas-Jones 24 hours later. He faces charges of sexual battery, false imprisonment, and kidnapping

“I was overwhelmed with emotion at how proud I was that this victim wasn’t going to allow herself to be raped,” Chronister said. “And how hard she fought and the strength she had.”

“I would tell every woman always to keep fighting, never give up,” Alma said in a statement provided by the sheriff’s office. “It’s better to reach out to law enforcement sooner than later. The sooner they have the information, the sooner they can catch that person.”