A group of people clad in costumes, including a man dressed as a Star Wars Stormtrooper and a woman dressed as Disney’s Snow White, performed a citizen’s arrest of a man on Sunday after he vandalized a famous topiary clock in Chile’s Viña del Mar coastal city, the website of ADN Radio Chile reported.
“A particular citizen arrest occurred this Sunday [July 3] in Viña del Mar. A hooded and intoxicated subject tried to destroy the emblematic flower clock of the Garden City,” ADN Radio Chile reported, using the popular nickname for Viña del Mar.
A guy in Chile tried to destroy Viña del Mar's flower clock. He was detained by Snow White and a stormtrooper who handed him over to police. pic.twitter.com/liujG8m0fL
— Benjamin Alvarez (@BenjAlvarez1) July 4, 2022
The incident was captured on eyewitness video published by the Chilean news outlet Agencia Quinta and has subsequently gone viral on social media over the past three days.
In the video clip, the suspect is seen actively pulling plants that form the clock’s face out of the ground by their roots and then hurling the clumps of organic matter into the air with abandon. He moves closer to the clock’s mechanic hands before a bystander rushes toward him and attempts to detain the vandal. This prompts the suspect to attempt to flee the hillside, and more bystanders run up the hill to try to detain him.
“The same people who were passing by rebuked him, yell[ed] insults at him and detain[ed] him on the ground until the police arrived,” ADN Radio Chile detailed.
The suspect tumbles down the small hill at one point during the scuffle, where he is successfully detained at first by a young man dressed in a punk rock outfit. Then, a melee ensues, during which the man in the Stormtrooper armor and the woman clad in a Snow White dress also take turns holding onto the suspect until a police officer arrives to formally arrest him.
The suspect was captured on video wearing a hood that covered most of his face during the vandalization, though this later falls to his neck during the skirmish. He was additionally filmed yelling out slurred words in Spanish as he was led away from the crime scene by a number of police officers on Sunday.
“Preliminary records indicate that the same subject had already been seen vandalizing the famous clock in the past,” ADN Radio Chile revealed on July 3, adding that the vandal appeared “intoxicated.” These claims were supported by Agencia Quinta, which similarly reported that the suspect had vandalized Viña del Mar’s topiary clock “again” while “in a state of intoxication.”
It remains unclear why the group of people who performed a citizen’s arrest of the clock vandal was dressed in costumes at the time.
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