FLINT, Mich. (NEXSTAR MEDIA) — A young woman in Michigan’s warning about a flannel shirt left on the windshield of her car is going viral for a very good reason.
Nineteen-year-old Ashley Hardacre works at the Genesee Valley Mall in Flint. Last Thursday night, after her shift, she walked out to her car to find the shirt tucked in her windshield wiper.
Already seated in the driver’s seat, Hardacre at first thought it was odd that someone had thrown the shirt on her car.
After she couldn’t get it off by running her windshield wipers, she immediately felt “uneasy” because there were two cars parked nearby, one of which was running.
“I had seen posts lately about people finding things under their windshield wipers in the Burton/Flint area as an attempt to get girls out of their cars and distracted,” she later wrote on Facebook in a post that has since gone viral. “Luckily I knew better than to remove the shirt with cars around me so I drove over to a place where I was safe and quickly rolled down my window and got the shirt off.”
Flint Township Police Detective Sergeant Brad Wangler told CBS News he contacted Hardacre after he saw her post on social media.
His department is now investigating alongside mall security. They’re reviewing surveillance footage to hopefully find the person responsible.
Hardacre hopes her story educates and ultimately helps protect women from falling victim to similar traps.
In the six days since it was posted, her Facebook post has been shared more than 100,000 times and has more than 8,800 comments.