Bend Police respond to viral TikTok after nude woman approaches man, son

Published 4:30 pm Wednesday, June 5, 2024

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A man’s simple phone call to Bend Police to report a nude woman in front of his lawn turned into a viral TikTok video critical of the police response.

Around 3:15 p.m., Tuesday police responded to a call that a nude woman had walked up to the front of a man’s home where his child and other adults were present. She left when confronted by the adults, said Sheila Miller, Bend Police spokesperson.

“We believe she was likely experiencing a mental health crisis,” Miller said.

Miller said police ultimately barred the woman from returning to the property, clothed or naked.

A TikTok video posted Tuesday shows the caller’s interaction with a Bend Police officer, who told him it isn’t illegal to be naked in public in Oregon.

The video was posted by a TikTok user with the username “SideMoneyTom.” The account has over 130,000 followers, and its creator appears to be the one who called 911 as he referenced his 2-year-old son in the video.

The video’s creator can be heard from behind the camera asking if someone is allowed to expose themselves to a child.

“Correct. It’s trespassing, but what I’m saying is there’s no laws against the actual nudity portion of it,” Officer Jeremey Avery said in the video.

The video creator asked, “So you can expose yourself to children in Oregon?”

“Again, if you’re not doing it for sexual gratification or the gratification of somebody else, yes, you are allowed to walk around in public naked,” Avery said.

The video creator then turned the camera on himself, questioning the validity of Oregon’s public indecency laws. “At what point did this become a normal and acceptable thing to do?” he said.

By Thursday afternoon, the video had nearly 1 million views, more than 73,000 likes and roughly 23,000 comments that weighed in on the merit of the officer’s responses.

The comments have been largely supportive of the creator, criticizing police and Oregon’s laws.

The police department addressed the video on X, formerly known as Twitter, Wednesday afternoon, citing missing context.

“We understand the homeowner’s concern — it’s always off-putting when someone acting strangely is on your property, especially if your kids are present,” the department wrote in a thread of posts.

The posts explained public nudity is not a crime unless it’s accompanied by sexual arousal, per Oregon state law.

“Our Department has been accused of supporting pedophilia, and obviously that is not the case — we take crimes against children very seriously,” the post said.

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