On Saturday, a Colorado woman was forced to subdue and detain a suspected “peeping tom” she noticed creepy behavior while trying on clothes in a department store fitting room.
Michelle Chandler posted a video of the disturbing incident at Nordstrom in Lakewood on Instagram, showing her pinning a young man to the ground, saying the man inappropriately recorded her.
“Everyone please be careful,” the mother of five wrote in the caption of her post, which also included photos and clips of her struggling to get the suspect to surrender.
“Thanks to the gender-neutral fitting room, this man was able to film me trying on clothes,” Chandler said. “Unfortunately, the employee who tried to help was asked to ‘remove from the situation.’ I restrained this man against the wall in a headlock for nearly 20 minutes!”
Chandler said police finally showed up and “took him into custody,” adding that the man had a knife and that she was “pressing charges.”
“I can’t imagine what was written on his phone or how many women he raped,” she continued in a social media post. She said: “I am shocked by the bystander (man) who was filming and taking photos and did nothing to help.”
“This has to stop!!!!!” Men do not have to enter women’s fitting rooms, bathrooms, or locker rooms. [or] Women’s sports teams,” she added.
in interview Chandler with KDVR-TV Said She caught the man while shopping for Mother’s Day on Saturday.
“When I went to take off his pants, I bent over and saw his men’s shoes, socks, and his cell phone pointed at me,” she recalled.
Instead of letting the suspect escape before the police arrived, she took matters into her own hands.
“I grabbed him, threw him to the ground, drove my knee into his back and pinned his head down,” Chandler explained.
She added that the suspect was 19 years old.
“You have to take responsibility,” the mother said. “What he did was not good.”
