A day at the beach turned into a scary experience for a four-year-old girl and her 18-year-old sister Thursday in Webster, Massachusetts, when police say they allegedly saw a man engaged in a lewd act.
Police said the sisters were at Memorial Beach at about 4 p.m. when they noticed a man on the swing set allegedly exposing himself and performing a lewd act.
"So they called, gave us a great description, tried to walk away from him while keeping an eye on his location, providing updates to the police," Webster Police Chief Michael Shaw said.
Once officers arrived, they quickly arrested Tanner Desrosiers, 27, of Woodstock, Connecticut.
Desrosiers told police he was allegedly urinating.
"He had his cell phone out so it's unknown what he was doing with that. We have that, we seized that, we're going to get a search warrant, see if there's anything on there that shouldn't be on there," Shaw said.
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Beachgoers were shocked something like that would happen in such a family-friendly place.
"I honestly can't believe it because this is a place I thought that I could bring my niece and nephews down to and to think something like that happened over here," Shelby Maiorana of Webster said.
"That's horrible. It's a nice public beach and this shouldn't be happening," added Nancy Deslauriers of Webster. "So kudos to the Webster Police."
The police chief agreed the incident is disturbing but thanked the caller for her quick actions in reporting it.
"In theory, she may have prevented something worse," Shaw said. "We had our incident at May Street Park last year where the girl was taken across state lines and sexually assaulted. I'd like to think that maybe because of her actions she might have prevented something like that."
Desrosiers was charged with open and gross lewdness and released on $290 cash bail. It's unclear if Desrosiers has an attorney who can speak to the charge.
