VACATION UPDATE #4: NYC SUBWAY PERVERT CAUGHT MASTURBATING - PHOTO ONLINE

Guys, it's the age of the camera/video phone. If you're dumb enough to pull out your prick on a New York City subway car in the middle of the afternoon and start whacking it in front of some woman, you DESERVE to have your picture taken and spread all over the internet.


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From 1010 WINS:
A 22-year-old woman used her camera phone to snap a photo of a man who exposed himself to her on an uptown "R" train and she has posted the picture on the internet. The site has already had more than 45-thousand hits, with one woman leaving the message, "I hope his mother sees it."

New York cops say the quick thinking woman did get a great shot of the guy . They hope someone will recognize him.

The flasher must at least be camera shy. After his picture was taken, he fled the train at the next stop.

The photo was originally posted at Flickr.com with the following explanation from the young woman:
"This happened to me today right after an interview I had. Luckily I landed the job so I was in a pretty defiant mood.

I was riding on the R train uptown at 3pm on Friday August 18th when a man exposed and began molesting himself on the train. It was at the very end of the train but it wasn't completely empty. A japanese couple sat on the other side and the man was sitting adjacent to me. I was minding my own business, taking the train to work as usual when this man got on the car and kept staring at me. I tried to avoid eye contact with him but I had a feeling he was up to no good when he kept massaging his crotch. I couldn't believe this guy had the audacity to do something like this in the middle of the day! So I took out my cell-phone and turned on the camera. Then I aimed the camera at him and took a quick shot. He quickly zipped himself up and got off at the next stop (it was two-three stops before union square). That didn't prevent me from getting a really good shot of him in the act.

Afterwards, I asked the japanese couple if they saw anything. They saw the man but they didn't notice what he was doing. I felt compelled to report this to the police so that it would prevent this from happening to other women. I said that if they did see anything, then they could help me go to the police and write it in the report. I got off at 34th street and reported it to a token booth operator. She was very helpful and directed me to a policewoman. The policewoman wrote down my description of the man and I asked her if she wanted the picture but she didn't take it. She told me that she would radio other officers and they would be on the lookout for that man. I couldn't believe she didn't take the picture, it had a pretty clear view of this person.

This has happened to plenty of my girlfriends in the past and it traumatized them, it feels like someone has violated you when this happens. Here is a chance that we can expose one of these sickos. Who knows what might happen later on if this isn't reported, this guy could go on to assault or rape women. I hope that we can stop this from happening to other women in the future.

UPDATE from my journal 08/20/05: I have semi-good news to report. I went to the Transit Police at Union Square to file an official report. Showing his picture on my cellphone didn't work before so I printed out a few copies of this photo to go with the story. They were a lot helpful than the policewoman I talked to yesterday. They wrote down everything, where he got on, where he got off, what time it happened and what he was doing. They asked me if I would prosecute this guy if they caught him and I said yes, definately because I don't want this to happen to other females. They're going to file a report and put it in the computer, and notify other officers around that area incase he lives around there and takes the train often. If something happens in the next few days or weeks, they will contact me.

There was a point where I didn't want to go through the trouble of going to the police again but the thought of this guy running loose and victimizing other women really frustrated me. I'm really glad I got this camera phone and I hope these pictures will help catch this sicko. For someone to do this in the middle of the day, on a busy line is freaking sick! I feel better now that I went back to the police, I hope they catch him.

What's even more disturbing is that this type of stuff happens quite frequently. I was sharing this with the girls in my Jui Jitsu class and this girl said that the same thing happened to her last week. It's also happened to both of the girls that I work with and it happened to the MTA token booth clerk that I first went to. I can't get this image out of my head until he is prosecuted.

UPDATE 08/22/05: I have a claim # and a detective on the case now. He called me today at 5pm and asked if I could come to look at a photo lineup. I came in and saw a bunch of photos (like 200-300 photos) of suspects but none of them matched.

Agh, it's so frustrating and upsetting that this pervert is still out there!! The detective was really helpful but it seems like the Police have got a lot of people to deal with. The database had about 27 million criminals alone, and this is only in NYC.

At first, I didn't want to go back to the police, but I'm glad I did. I really hope we can catch this guy, either that or embarass the hell out of him so he or any other perverts wont think to do it again. I don't even know what motivated me to take the picture, I was really nervous at that time but it was like just instinct.

I might have to go back to the police station on Sunday to look through the rest of the photo database cause there was like 4500 pictures and I only got through about 300 of them. We might even go down to the area where he got off and check the trains around the same time to see if he takes the train often.

If you live in NYC, please feel free to repost or forward this story and his image around. We have this pic of him and he really needs to be caught. At least to teach other perverts a lesson.

UPDATE 08/25/05: I found out from a friend that my story was posted on Gothamist which was awesome, the more people who see his face the better. I want to thank everyone who took their time to look at his picture and passed it around. If you recognize this pervert, please report his where-abouts to the police, there's an open case out on him. If this pervert wants to expose himself on the subway then we're going to expose him on the internet.

The phone I used to take the picture was the Samsung P777 cellphone, it's 1.3 megapixel so that's why the quality is better than the average cellphone.

Update 08/26/05: I'd really like to respond to everyone's comments but I just started a new job recently so I haven't had much time lately. I can't believe how the response has been since I put this on flickr.

I have some really awesome news though. A reporter from the Daily News stumbled on this story and contacted me today. They're going to print the story and the image in the Daily News tomorrow! This is great because the more people who see it, the better our chances are of catching this pervert. This goes out to all the women who have been through this awful experience.

Just for the record, I am just a typical female subway rider and the image wasn't altered, it was taken directly from my cellphone. The 27mil criminals was accumulated over several years.

If and when we catch this guy, it was all because of you folks. Whether or not you were supportive, I really appreciate everyone who took the time to read the story and look at the image."