Man who hurled insults towards woman in Puerto Rico shirt charged with felony hate crimes
The suspect had his charges enhanced after a video of the incident went viral
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Your support makes all the difference.A man who confronted a woman for wearing a shirt with the Puerto Rican flag in a Chicago park has been charged with felony hate crimes after a video of the incident went viral.
Timothy Trybus, a 62-year-old Chicago resident, was arrested this week by Cook County Forest Preserve police for verbally attacking the woman a month earlier as she begged him to stop and pleaded for a nearby police officer to intervene.
Mr Trybus was charged with two counts of felony hate crime, the Chicago Tribune reported, after previously being charged with two misdemeanours for assault and disorderly conduct. The charges were upgraded after Mia Irizarry, the woman wearing the Puerto Rican shirt, uploaded her video to social media this week.
The video shows Mr Trybus approaching Ms Irizarry in a section of the park which she had rented to celebrate her birthday, repeatedly questioning her citizenship status as a police officer appears to ignore the confrontation.
“You should not be wearing that in the United States of America,” he says.
Ms Irizarry walks away from the man, pointing her camera towards the officer and saying, “Officer, I'm renting, I paid for a permit for this area.. I do not feel comfortable with him here, is there anything you can do?"
Throughout the ordeal, Mr Trybus continues walking closely toward Ms Irizarry. “Are you a citizen? Are you a United States citizen?” he says.
More police arrive to the scene later on in the video after nearby witnesses called local authorities. That’s when a female officer finally steps, filing a report of the incident and halting Mr Trybus’ comments.
“You don't come here harassing people,” the officer said. ”People have just as much right to be here as you and when you're drunk, you don't belong here.”
The first officer seen in the video, Patrick Connor, resigned after being placed on desk duty while the police department conducted an investigation into his response to the situation, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Chicago Democrat Luis Gutierrez said the state did "the right thing" in charging Mr Trybus with multiple hate crimes.
"There should be consequences. People have to learn there are consequences, especially in the era of Trump," the congressman said in a statement to the local news outlet.
"I really do believe there are people who say to themselves, ‘If Trump can do it, I can do it. Why can’t I go out there and say the things the president says?"
Mr Trybus is far from the first person to have his alleged hate-fuelled attacks posted online. A wave of videos and reports have gone viral in recent months of white Americans beating, harassing and insulting minorities for no apparent reason besides bias, often calling their citizenship into question.
Just this week, a woman in Los Angeles was arrested for allegedly beating a 92-year-old man with a brick while telling him to "go back to Mexico."
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