A 20-year-old Illinois man was charged with battery and disorderly conduct after video showed him grabbing a TV reporter on the air and yelling an obscenity about her, the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday.
Police in Shorewood, Illinois, say Eric Farina confessed to the infraction.
WGN-TV reporter Gaynor Hall was updating weather in the area southwest of Chicago on Saturday when Farina seized her by the arm and yelled “Fuck her right in the pussy,” an ugly refrain sometimes uttered by those harassing female journalists.
“You violated my personal space,” Hall wrote in a note to the attacker on Facebook. “You grabbed me. You scared me. Was it worth it?” She later thanked supporters for helping police find the man.
Authorities located Farina at his home in Minooka, Ilinois, on Sunday after he ran from the scene the day before, according to the Tribune.
Instances of men sexually harassing journalists out in the field have been all too common.
“No woman should EVER have to put up with this at work or anywhere!! Do better,” reporter Alex Bozarjian tweeted after a man in a Savannah, Georgia, running race slapped her backside as she covered the competition in December.
CORRECTION: This article previously misstated the location of Shorewood relative to Chicago.