MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Cell phone video shows a man covering his face and reaching for a woman’s cell phone after the woman said he flashed her on an Overton Park trail.
Anastasia Simpson said she was walking to the Old Forest Trail last Tuesday when a woman warned her about a man with his shorts down, pleasuring himself in the middle of the trail.
“This is my park, this is my trail, I need this walk. I walk here every day and I’m not gonna, you know, let this deter,” said Simpson.
She said it wasn’t long before she spotted the man for herself.
“About 20 feet away, there he was in the middle of the trail and he made a show of what he was doing,” Simpson said.
At that point, she said she began filming him on her cell phone.
“I was laughing and I said, ‘I got you,’ and I showed him I had him on video,” she said.
“I was saying, ‘Show your face. Show your face. You showed us everything else,’ and so he jumped me.”
Simpson said the man struggled with her for her phone, before running off with it. She said she followed, but eventually lost sight of him.
She was able to retrieve a four-second video clip of the encounter from her phone’s online backup system, but was unable to track the phone because the alleged flasher had apparently turned it off.
“I hope for one that they catch him. I think that even in between this little trail if it’s something that they never think about, it is something for us to enjoy, but somewhere down the line they need to have some sort of security system,” said park visitor Mareco Wilson.
Simpson said police responded to Overton Park the day of the incident, but when she left a message for detectives offering them the video, she said they never followed up.
WREG asked Memphis police if they planned to use the video to identify the suspect and a spokeswoman said she would check with investigators in the morning.
Simpson said the man stands about 5’ 5” and was wearing a dirty white shirt with dark shorts.
