Catherine Ferreira cried through the whole conversation as she described the beating she suffered Tuesday on a walking path behind a fast food restaurant near her home.
She didn't want the notoriety and she especially didn't want her 2-year-old son to be exposed to the rage and violence that is apparent in a video that drew hundreds of thousands of Internet viewers over the next 24 hours.
"I became really afraid," Ferreira said. "I thought she may have been capable of hitting my son. I mean, her size versus my size — she could have killed me."
Police are searching for city resident Latia Harris, 25, and are prepared to charge her with aggravated assault and other offenses. Harris was on duty at the local McDonald's restaurant when she confronted Ferreira. The attack took place after Ferreira left the restaurant and began to walk home with the little boy.
Ferreira, 27, said she is currently a community college student and once worked at a local grocery store where Harris also was employed. She said Harris was angry because Ferriera had told others that Harris was romantically involved with another co-worker.
Ferreira spoke Thursday from the living room of her city apartment. Her boyfriend, Malyk Green, and young Xzavion were by her side. Her nose is broken and her face completely swollen with black-and-blue bruises. She held an ice pack to her scarred cheeks.
"I have to wake up like this now," Ferreira said. "I have school to go to and all of this over a fight ... and the fight is over stupidity — nothing is worth any of this. No job, no guy is worth any of this ... she really did a number on me. For nothing. Over nothing."
In the video, 2-year-old Xzavion Ortiz pleaded for the violence against his mother to stop. Bystanders watched and used cell phones to record the fight, doing nothing to stop it.
Harris had not been apprehended as of Thursday night, but police have said they will charge her with aggravated assault and making terroristic threats.
Ferreira said she is also a former employee of the same McDonald's on East Broadway where Harris is employed. She said she visited McDonald's two to three weeks before the fight to visit former co-workers.
While there, Ferreira said she made a joke about Harris and her manager "being together."
"I was joking around with two other employees," she said. "I was talking to my former co-workers — and since she overheard the statements that I made, she was upset."
Over those weeks, Ferreira said Harris kept calling her and harassing her about her comments.
"She asked me why I said that, and told me she could get into trouble," Ferreira said.
While walking home Tuesday, Ferreira said Harris approached and "just swung" at her.
"I tried to swing back, but she got me on the floor and just started pounding my face," she said.
In the video, Harris made a threat about hitting the 2-year-old boy.
"Once she made that reference, that is when I became really afraid — I was trying to see if my son was all right," she said. "I didn't want to agitate or muscle her because I thought she may have been capable of hitting my son."
Ferriera downplayed the uproar about the bystanders, who she described as "kids" who were customers at the McDonald's.
"I really want to make this clear — I don't want people to see them as monsters," she said. "They didn't really see that this was more serious than just a fight."
Ferreira and Green said they waited about an hour for an ambulance to arrive to bring her to Memorial Hospital of Salem County.
"It took forever for the ambulance to get there," Green said. "The 9-1-1 operator told us that (Salem EMS) is volunteer and that there was no staff. Finally, Elsinboro ambulance arrived."
"I just feel horrible about the whole situation," Ferriera said through tears. "I am hoping this whole thing dies out."
However, Ferreira said she knows the matter remains far from resolved.
"I feel sorry for her," Ferreira said of her attacker, again breaking down and crying. "She has two kids — and all of this — over what? Nothing."
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