Queen’s Riis Park is a bona fide beach paradise for misfits, and an obligatory destination on 4th of July weekend for gays who didn’t feel like going to Provicetown or Fire Island. Popular among boozed-up men clad in stars-and-stripes posing trunks — and women who want to canoodle topless without dealing with dueling, drooling bros — Riis and its relative remoteness has given it the reputation of an unselfconscious, carefree safe haven.
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On Monday, a Brooklyn-based photographer named Krys Fox found himself unexpectedly tackled by police after his towel dropped off his waist. Fox, a gay man, was working on an Instagram photo series while his wet bathing shorts dried in the sun.
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Speaking to the Daily Dot, Fox reports that police were patrolling the beach all day. They were “on horses, in uniform, undercover” — “everywhere.” Whether the NYPD were on the lookout for particularly heated volleyball tournaments or transgressive body board maneuvers remains unclear. Nevertheless, the last thing Fox expected was to be arrested due to a mild towel malfunction.
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“I just didn’t wrap my towel around my waist tight enough,” he tells Daily Dot, “and it suddenly slipped down and I literally got sent to jail for it.”
Here’s an eyewitness account, which was shared on Facebook:
Because Riis is a National Park Service area and not a city beach, the rules are far more lenient. Alcohol is served in booths, and many sunbathers are nude — to the point that casual onlookers would assume it’s actually a nude beach.
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Fox certainly thought it was. “I’d always heard that it was a clothing-optional beach,” he said. “I keep running it over and over in my head, and I can’t even begin to answer why they chose me. I wasn’t causing a scene, I was just shooting a photo of someone like I always do.”
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The photographer also describes himself as “shy;” the type of person who “would never run around naked.” As anyone who goes to Riis with any regularity would know, he’s in the minority as far as that’s concerned.
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On social media, people are insisting cops were only patrolling the gay section of Riis, and are comparing the incident to gay bar raids and bathhouse crackdowns. There’s a general concern that, in a post-Orlando world, the NYPD will use their increased presence in gay spaces to not so much protect the queer community as monitor and antagonize them.
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As The Daily Dot reports, a friend of Fox’s commented that “his naked body is seen as more dangerous than a gun.”
Talking to The Huffington Post, Fox described the incident as “very quick and very scary.”
It’s the worst moment of my life. My biggest problem is that Riis is my safe space and I’ve been going there for almost a decade. I got married in 2011 almost exactly where I was arrested. I shoot there all summer long and was working on a photo project I was devoting to the Orlando victims.”
Watch footage of the arrest’s aftermath below:
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
I’m withholding judgement until there’s further evidence… However there are red flags with the SJW buzzwords already
mdbuck67
So, let me get this straight (no pun intended)… So, just because someone is gay, that exempts them from public nudity laws? Hmmmm… Must have missed that statute. Just because others don’t get caught for public nudity doesn’t mean you’re exempt, either. I think there should be safe outdoor spaces to go naked, but the law is the law… And it applies to us gays as well as straights. If you want to change the law, do it.
Brian
Why do you even need a gay section at a beach? I thought gays wanted integration, not segregation.
As for the nudity, I doubt the reaction of the police would have been as forceful if it was a nude woman. Liberal America has developed anti-male qualities due to the influences of feminism. I blame liberals and feminists.
Babycakes
@Brian: I guarantee you if it had been a women the cops would’ve just asked nicely to put something on.
IDoNotHaveToAgreeWithYou
He should be bitch slapped for playing the gay card on a legitimate arrest. He had his pants off in public. There were probably kids on that beach.
Tobi
It’s so weird that people conflate nudity with sex in the USA.
KM201
This is so typical in the gay community. During pride week, all the white gays on here and throughout the internet are all like “Yay we love cops!” and defending them from the criticisms of the Black Lives Matter movement. Meanwhile, instances of brutality like this occur all the time and all the pig defenders are silent. Maybe some of you should take some advice from the original poster next time you go all “We love hot cops!” in the face of people of color in our community.
“Preston Anderson: Weren’t y’all just marching with these cops in the gay pride parade, despite protests from queer people of color? Or was that a way to alienate us?”
“Jax Jackson (Original poster): There’s definitely a complacency in my activism that I have to face. That’s clearer to me now.”
IDoNotHaveToAgreeWithYou
@KM201: The pigs were doing their job. This fool was naked on a public beach and he went to jail for it. Get over it and stop your POC entitlement whine. Being black, brown or gay doesn’t make you exempt from the law.
RomanHans
@KM201: Congrats! You managed to be stupider than Brian
Kieran
They hate us because of our freedom.
Woman to Ben Franklin: “What kind of government are we getting?”
Franklin: “A Republic, Madam. IF you can keep it.”
KM201
@IDoNotHaveToAgreeWithYou: He was beaten for being naked on a beach and he was covered by a towel which slipped off. He also is going to cost the city millions with a brutality lawsuit which he will most likely win. Not that it matters to you because most likely YouDoNotPayTaxes.
@RomanHans Facts seem to be an uncomfortable thing for you to handle and he happens to be right. It’s a double standard, one you seem to support and you should be ashamed of yourself.
gayhope1990
The wolves are released since the Orlando shooting.The homophobic feel safe to threaten us we must fight back and live in our own spots far from the straight.
RomanHans
@KM201:You should focus on not being dumb.
“This is so typical in the gay community.”
Nothing is typical in the gay community any more than something is typical in the straight community.
“During pride week, all the white gays on here and throughout the internet are all like ‘Yay we love cops!’”
Proof of both, please. And saying one cop is attractive isn’t saying “Yay we love cops!”
“…and defending them from the criticisms of the Black Lives Matter movement.”
If this is “typical” of the gay community, you can easily find a few examples. Please make sure your alleged “gay defense of cops” includes a mention of race.
“Maybe some of you should take some advice from the original poster next time you go all ‘We love hot cops!’ in the face of people of color in our community.”
When we see attractive policemen we say, “Wow, that’s a hot cop.” Why do I call you stupid? Because you think that equates to, “I support your r*cist and h*mophobic tactics, Mr. Policeman!” And you’re insulting all of us by saying the latter sentiment is “typical” of the gay community.
(Asterisks added to get this comment out of moderation.)
Kangol
Clearly no one commenting here has spent much time at Riis Beach or little time there, but this police response to his temporary nudity sounds extreme and excessive. It also will lead to charges that’ll have to be dropped if Krys gets a good lawyer, and a possible payout from New York City. I’ve been there and seen nude people, but I have never once seen anyone arrested.
Riis is a gritty but easy and economical beach to get to, but next time he and his friends should take the ferry to Sandy Hook, across New York Sound, which has a clothing-optional/nude beach. He won’t have to worry about thug cops arresting him or his friends for showing skin–including everything.
ShaunNJ
I think the police should have used better judgement. A slipped towel or brief nudity while drying oneself hardly merits the efforts and expense of an arrest. Just give him a ticket. Not to mention there’s been tolerated nudity at Riis Park for decades – at least since the mid 70s when I first went as a child. As a teen in the 80s even more so.
DCguy
@KM201:
Your post comes off as anti-gay as any of the trolling comments. Perhaps you should say something to yourself twice before posting.
As for the guy on the beach. He was naked on the beach. I’m assuming that gets a citation. So two questions. (Although the towel slip seems a shaky story)
1. If cops WERE only patrolling the gay section, why?
2. Why was he beaten if it’s a simple public nudity citation?
Brian
Would they carry a naked woman like they are carrying that naked man? I doubt it.
ramonromano
@Kangol: thank you. I’ve been to this beach also and had seen lots of nudity I actually assumed it was permitted as well. In the times I’ve been I have never any young children actually on the part where the gays are. The article is also pointing out is police presence has become greater on the beach in the past few years. The police don’t seem to be policing other beach laws (no glass containers, or alcohol) but instead they have been antagonizing people. If his story is true that his towel slipped the use of force here seems excessive. Id like to know if the police spoke to him advising him it was not a nude beach and asked him to cover-up before tackling him and carrying him off the beach.
DarkZephyr
@KM201: I still love cops, so let me say it. Yaaay cops! I don’t like homophobic or r*c*st cops but I am not gonna hate on all of them, and most certainly not on LGBTQ cops who deserve a space at LGBT Pride. What happened above was messed up, but it changes nothing when it comes to how I feel about LGBTQ cops. Sorry.
michaelmt1009
So the police have nothing better to do on a 4th of July weekend than patrol a beach to see if anyone is naked. Apparently there is no other serious crime in the area.
Bob LaBlah
This USED to be the site of the People of Color summer beach party. That is until the ethnic queen whom the powers that be put in charge of that organization decided to use the funds for the event to not only fly herself and a few of her friends first class out to Los Angeles but also used funds to bail one of her credit-card fraudsters out of jail. I kid you not, she sure as hell did do just that.
The beach is just downright gritty. It reminds me of the Christopher street pier before it was renovated. Its mainly for those looking for low-lives to have a romp with after the sun goes down.
Me2
There were multiple nude people on this beach all day last Monday and no one said anything. Then as the day draws to a close it suddenly becomes a problem. My guess is that these cops must’ve been one arrest shy of their daily quota and unfortunately, for this young man, he was the closest and easiest target.
joeyty
@Bob LaBlah: I’m not sure who the “ethnic queen” is you’re referring to (you’re not obliged to tell if you’d rather..) but that beach at Riis Park IS greatly like the Christopher Street piers was.
Bob LaBlah
@joeyty: TRUST me, nowhere in the world will there ever be allowed another Christopher street pier. We are talking about the mid-1980’s, the days when not even the NYPD gave a damn about ANYTHING. People were having sex out there in the open at 1pm. God only knows what you might have just stepped in (that JUST how bad, filthy and raunchy that pier was). Peter Rabbit was right across the street as was Kellers and both were jumping at the time. So were the video arcades. It was a great time to be in NYC lol
Its a long story regarding what happen to that very hot annual August pride beach party but it ended tragically. It went to hell in a hand basket in less than a year. The powers that be caved in to pressure regarding “well if it’s for US, then why are YOU handing the money”. Instead of listening to common sense they decided to do what was politically correct and one year later it went extinct. No one argued for its return and the amount of money that whore f’d up was criminal. I mean she made it bad for ALL of “them” across the country.
I just LOVE getting all UP in their business. Can’t wait to get “tackled” on this one.
joeyty
@Bob LaBlah: Thanks for the info. “Veddy” interesting.