ST. GEORGE — An Oregon man was arrested for allegedly using his cellphone to record video of a customer using the restroom at a local store on River Road in St. George.
2022 file photo for illustrative purposes only of a St. George Police officer in the Target parking lot, St. George, Utah, Sept. 30, 2022 | Photo by David Dudley, St. George News
On Dec. 15, officers responded to Target shortly after 10 p.m. on a report of a suspicious person in one of the store’s restrooms.
According to charging documents filed with the court, officers arrived and spoke to the reporting party who said that while the complainant was using one of the urinals, there was a suspect in the adjacent stall who had reportedly slid a cellphone underneath the stall divider.
The complainant notified one of the store’s staff members who then called police. The suspect, officers learned, was still in the bathroom.
Officers knocked on the stall door and made contact with the suspect who was identified as Tayler Paul Ericksen, of Portland, Oregon.
While speaking to police, the suspect said he did not record anyone using the restroom and that he had gone to Target to buy a toothbrush. He told officers he had spent the last hour in the restroom due to feeling unwell.
Officers asked if they could check the suspect’s phone, when Ericksen reportedly agreed and then “quickly opened his phone and selected a folder that did not show any pictures that were taken in the restroom,” and then closed his phone, the officer wrote.
File photo for illustrative purposes only. Numerous police vehicles park in front of Target on River Road, St. George, Utah, Dec. 15, 2018 | Photo by Cody Blowers, St. George News
When officers requested a closer inspection of the suspect’s phone, the report states, Ericksen said he had already shown officers his phone and did not want to open it again. The suspect was then detained and his phone was seized by police.
Ericksen was transported and booked into jail in Washington County shortly before midnight facing one count of voyeurism by electronic equipment concealed or disguised, a misdemeanor.
While he was being processed at the jail, the suspect reportedly admitted to taking photos and videos in the restroom of the store, then provided officers with the passcode to access his cellphone.
The suspect was released the following morning after posting $1,000 bail. He is scheduled to make an initial appearance in 5th District Court on Feb. 12 in St. George.
This report is based on statements from court records, police or other responders and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2023, all rights reserved.