Is The Naked BART Man Roaming SF's Streets in Costume to Evade Police?
A tipster just emailed us to say that his girlfriend Stephanie was walking around Sue Bierman Park in San Francisco's Financial District today and happened across a creepy-masked busker who looked strangely familiar.
Could this be the infamous Naked BART Man who currently has an outstanding warrant for his arrest on suspicion of misdemeanor battery?
The tipster flipped through the photos on the Facebook page of Yeiner Perez's former circus troupe ClownSnotBombs, and sure enough, he found a photo of Perez wearing the exact same outfit (above, right).
Stephanie elaborates on the encounter:
A bunch of us went to the Ferry building to eat lunch and we saw who we suspect Yeiner Perez walking on stilts up and down the piers. He was generally non-threatening, though he did seem really annoyed when we didn't give him money for taking a picture. [...]
For the record, I think if the naked BART man had not harassed women and other bystanders, I wouldn't think anything about the BART video.
Perez was placed on a psychiatric hold following his well-documented rampage through the 16th Street BART station last month. He was subsequently jailed for 48 hours on suspicion of misdemeanor assault, but was released.
According to SFist, he has since had a warrant issued for his arrest, though his whereabouts were unknown.
UPDATE: Courtesy of another tipster, here's Perez wearing the very same mask in a photo on his personal Facebook page.
[thanks for the tip, M!, video by Chris K.]