UC Berkeley Student Chased Into Apartment by Homeless Man (Video)

A UC Berkeley student says an ordinary nighttime walk with her dog turned terrifying when a man followed her to her off-campus apartment complex, climbed over a secured entrance and continued after her inside.

Surveillance footage from the Tuesday night encounter shows junior Eden Winograd entering the apartment complex with her dog before a man appears moments later and scales the gate behind her.

Winograd told NBC Bay Area that the frightening ordeal unfolded around 8 p.m. as she returned from walking her dog near her Berkeley apartment.

She said she recognized the man from a previous encounter several days earlier and became increasingly uneasy when he began following her.

“I started to panic a little bit, but I didn’t want to offend him if he was just standing there,” Winograd said.

She crossed the street in an attempt to put distance between them, but said the man continued behind her.

“I started speeding up and heard his feet banging on the floor behind me,” she recalled.

Winograd eventually reached the secured entrance to her apartment complex, buzzed herself inside and closed the gate.

But she soon heard metal clanging behind her.

When she turned around, she said she saw the man climbing over the gate.

Surveillance footage later shared by Berkeley police shows the man apparently using part of the entrance as a foothold before making his way over the barrier and continuing into the complex.

Winograd rushed toward an elevator and called police.

“My heart sank, I was out of breath, my heart was pounding,” she told NBC Bay Area.

Object First Reported as a Knife

The security footage also showed the man carrying an object in his hand.

According to police, early reports suggested it may have been a knife. Investigators later determined the item was most likely a barbecue lighter, NBC Bay Area reported.

Police have not said why the man was carrying it.

For Winograd, the distinction did little to ease the fear she experienced.

“I don’t care if they have a weapon in their hand or nothing in their hand, I don’t want to be chased the second I step out of my apartment,” she said.

“I don’t want to be chased and have to watch someone claw their way up a wall to get to where I live.”

Winograd also posted footage of the encounter to TikTok, where it rapidly attracted hundreds of thousands of views.

Police Found the Man the Next Day

Berkeley police received another call the following day about a man lying on a sidewalk in the same area.

Officers detained him and determined he was the same person involved in what police described as the earlier trespassing incident, according to NBC Bay Area.

Importantly, police did not arrest the man.

Authorities described him as a 50-year-old man experiencing homelessness. His name has not been publicly released.

Instead, Berkeley police forwarded the case to the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office for review.

That means prosecutors will determine whether the available evidence supports filing criminal charges. A referral to prosecutors does not itself mean charges will be brought.

The incident also occurred off campus, meaning Berkeley city police, rather than UC Berkeley’s campus police department, handled the investigation.

Berkeley police advise residents to call 911 when a trespassing situation presents an immediate emergency. The department also allows property owners dealing with recurring trespassing problems to file no-trespassing documentation with police.

Berkeley Has Been Grappling With Homelessness for Years

The encounter has also renewed attention on homelessness in Berkeley, although city figures show a more complicated picture than simply a steadily worsening problem.

Berkeley’s 2024 Point-in-Time Count found 844 people experiencing homelessness on a single night. Of those, 445 were unsheltered and 399 were staying in shelters.

The total was down from 1,057 people counted in 2022.

More notably, Berkeley reported that the number of unsheltered people fell from 803 in 2022 to 445 in 2024 — a 45% decline. City officials have described that as one of the strongest reductions among comparable Bay Area cities.

Housing capacity remains a challenge, however. A city audit found Berkeley had roughly 320 shelter beds in August 2024, substantially fewer than the 844 people counted as homeless earlier that year.

The numbers provide broader context for Berkeley’s continuing debate over homelessness, public spaces and neighborhood safety, but police have not suggested that Winograd’s encounter was connected to any organized encampment or wider series of attacks.

For Winograd, the concern is much more immediate.

She said the encounter has changed how she feels about simply leaving her apartment and returning home.

For now, the next major development will come from the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, which will decide whether charges should be filed against the man.