EXCLUSIVE: Queens Store's Surveillance Camera Catches Alleged Upskirter In The Act
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A woman says surveillance video from a store in Queens confirmed her worst suspicions; a strange man apparently tried taking a photo under her skirt.
The crime is known as upskirting, and police sources tell CBS2 it tends to spike during the summer. 26-year-old Edjelyn Gamboa says her gut knew something was wrong before she could even process what the stranger behind her in the children's aisle of Burlington Coat Factory in Rego Park was doing Monday evening.
"I feel violated," Gamboa tells CBS2. She says she was shopping for her niece around 6 p.m. when she felt something brush the back of her leg. "I saw a light went off behind me and he's holding his phone on camera mode."
Gamboa called her sister a few aisles over as the man was making his way towards the exit. The women then confronted the alleged peeper.
"He said 'What happened? I didn't do anything'," sister Edalyn Estrada said, adding the man ran away when she threatened to check the store's surveillance video.
Even though the man was gone, the sisters asked employees to show them the security tape.
"I had goosebumps," Estrada said. "If you look at the video he was actually covering the camera using the baby clothes just slip the phone under her skirt."
Gamboa is visiting her sister for the summer before going back to her native Philippines, where she's a beauty pageant contestant. Estrada says she hopes the disturbing ordeal doesn't make her sister think ill of New York.
"We're women, and simply wearing skirts doesn't give them a pass to harass us," said Gamboa. Both women say they hope police find the man before he can take photos of any other unsuspecting victims.
Investigators are probing the incident as unlawful surveillance, and warn women to be aware of upskirting on the subway and in dressing rooms.
