Over the weekend, a registered sex offender with eight charges of peeping under his belt was accused of peeping on a teen girl in a women’s bathroom at a Cracker Barrel restaurant. The man was apprehended by the girl’s father, and later tackled and held by other dads on scene until police arrived.
According to Duncan Police Department officials, WSPA reports, 53-year-old Douglas Lane, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was hit with multiple charges, including voyeurism, from the Sunday incident at the Cracker Barrel.
Duncan Police Chief Carl Long said a 15-year-old girl told her father that a man, later identified as Lane, was looking at her while she was in the women’s bathroom at the restaurant.
“She said she noticed something moving at her feet and realized it was a man’s head coming from the stall beside her,” WSPA reported.
The girl left the bathroom and alerted her father, who had a female employee at the Cracker Barrel get the man to exit the restroom.
A witness, according to WSPA, said that the teen girl who alerted her father was not the only girl in the restroom when the alleged peeping incident took place.
“I’ll never forget the way they looked after,” the witness said. “They were traumatized.”
Chief Long said the girl’s dad “confronted Lane at the entrance to the bathroom area of the restaurant.”
“The guy came running, sprinting out the front door with a very bloody nose,” a witness recalled.
“Lane tried to get away, but other fathers aware of the incident reportedly helped tackle Lane in the parking lot and restrained him until police arrived,” according to the police chief, WSPA said.
The accused man’s phone was found on the women’s restroom floor and was confiscated by police.
Video compiled by the local news station shows a bloodied Lane sitting on the grass outside the restaurant, surrounded by people who are seemingly holding him until police arrive on the scene.
“You’re a piece of s***!” one man can be heard yelling at Lane. “You’re a piece of s***!”
“I didn’t do [inaudible],” Lane responds on video, his face bloodied.
“Were you in the girl’s bathroom?” the man asked Lane. “How’d you end up there? Because Imma tell you, if that was my daughter, you wouldn’t walk away.”
“Lane was charged with voyeurism, possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia,” the police chief said, according to WSPA, noting that Lane is a registered sex offender who has been charged for peeping at least eight times before Sunday’s incident at the Cracker Barrel.
“During his bond hearing on Monday, Lane received a $2,000 surety bond and will be monitored by GPS. The judge ordered he move to South Carolina, but he must have no contact with the victim or her family,” the report said. “Lane’s initial court hearing will be at 9:00 a.m. on November 12th.”
The investigation is ongoing with a possibility of additional charges being thrown at Lane.