[ad_1]
An agent from the Cook County Forest Conservatories was assigned to his post after a video showed that he had not helped a harassed woman because she was wearing a shirt designed to look like the Puerto Rican flag.
The June 14 incident appeared on Monday when the video, apparently taken at Caldwell Woods in the Far Northwest Side, became viral. Tuesday morning, he had 1.7 million views and the governor of Puerto Rico tweeted about it.
In the video, a man – later identified in police reports as Timothy G. Trybus, 62 – asks why the woman is wearing a shirt displaying the Puerto Rican flag. He asks her if she is an American citizen, even though Puerto Rico is a Commonwealth of the United States.
"You should not take him to the United States of America," Trybus tells him . an aid officer and asks him to restrain Trybus. The agent is visible in the background of the video, standing a few feet away from Trybus and the woman, but he does not seem to respond to the requests for help from the woman
"Officer, I rent this area and he harasses me" The shirt I'm wearing, "says the woman.
A five-minute clip of the video showing the exchange between Trybus and the woman became viral, but a 36-minute longer video of the incident and the consequences showed that After the arrival of other agents, the first officer on the scene finally sat down to take a statement from the woman and her brother.
As the officer wrote in a small notebook, the woman explained what had happened. to help. In a subsequent police report obtained from the Forest Preserve District Police Department, the officer did not mention the woman's request for assistance.
In the longest video, the officer explained that he had been called to the reserve in response to an alleged incident between Trybus's male mate and another woman, and seemed to be trying to find out. Assure the woman that Trybus posed no threat to her safety.
"So, now that I see what's going on, I see what's going on, going on between you and them," said the officer in the video. "So, at no time would he attack you … he's just a big mouth."
But the woman was not convinced.
"Well, I guess you never know," she said curtly. "You never know." "" You never know, "said the officer.
Trybus was arrested and charged with assault and disorderly conduct, according to the agency Forest Preserves
"All people are welcome in the Cook County Forest Reserves and no one should feel in any danger when visiting our reserves," wrote the agency.
Ricardo Rossello , Puerto Rico's governor, commented on the incident in four tweets on Twitter.He said the incident was "indignant" and that he was "dismayed, shocked and disturbed." He said that the Puerto Rican authorities were contacting the Chicago and Illinois area authorities to demand that this agent be expelled from the police. "also tweeted that he was certain that the chairman of the Cook County Council , Toni Preckwinkle, "will take the thing in hand because justice and diversity "have been at the heart of his exemplary career."
He tweeted: "This is not America"
Preckwinkle on Tuesday called the incident "completely unacceptable" and offered his apology to the victim for "l & # 39; terrible experience. "
" I am troubled by the response of the initial agent to the scene, "Preckwinkle
She said the agent should have intervened since the man in the video" was Violent and offensive in his behavior "and the woman had a permit to use the space.However, when asked if the agent was to be dismissed, Preckwinkle said that she did not did not know the specific rules of the forest reserve for improper behavior of an agent.
Preckwinkle stated that the forest reserves were planning to use this video in their future exercises. 19659002] About five minutes after the beginning of the video, a man with the woman can be heard screaming at the officer that he wanted to arrest the alleged offender.
"You will not come to talk to me" says the man to the agent. "How is this justice?"
The agent answers: "Relax." A little later, the agent tells them "wait. Wait a minute. D & # 39; right? "
The man off camera asks him why the man came close to her.
" Because I'm wearing a Puerto Rico shirt, "she says. "That was it. He started saying, "Why are you wearing this here? Why are you wearing that here? It is America.
When the man off camera asks what the officer was doing, she said, "He was looking, he was looking at it literally, and I told him a few times, I thought, I do not feel not comfortable. Can you catch it? I said it a few times and he was standing right there, and I also have it in front of the camera. "
Later, a second police vehicle gets up
" J & # 39 In fact, Trybus, who appears to be intoxicated, sits at a picnic table and chats with a police officer who came to the scene
. The officer says, "People have a license for this area, OK and you do not need to harass them …"
The officer later said, "People have as much the right to be here as you, and when you "Trybus replies," When I'm drunk, I do not belong here.
"It's true" The fem An officer says, "It's what's called a messy conduct." "Do you want to argue?"
When the female officer approached the woman, she complained that the initial agent did not respond to her requests for help. "… He (the first officer) was watching, literally standing there watching the whole thing happen, like nothing," she said.
Come back for updates.
Kathy Routliffe, reporter for Pioneer Press.
Source link
