A Naperville man has been arrested for confronting protestors with a baseball bat on June 1.
Thomas Ruiz is charged with two counts of Aggravated Assault using a deadly weapon (baseball bat) after a video surfaced online of him appearing to threaten a group of protestors, according to the Naperville Police Department.
Warning Video Uses Profanity
The video starts with the group telling Ruiz their car is parked down the road behind where he was standing. He then tries to cut off the group while raising his bat.
“For what?,” Ruiz asked. “It’s curfew right now.”
The group responded to the 56-year-old multiple times by saying “we’re trying to leave.”
The incident happened near Downtown Naperville where looters robbed multiple stores.
Ruiz can be seen yelling at the teens saying “I don’t want my town (bleeped) up.”
A mother of two of the girls in the group said, “my daughters and friends were racially profiled. They were trying to get back to their vehicle safely, so they walked residential streets on the 500 block of E Chicago Ave instead of the main roads where the protesting was still going. Men of the neighborhood approached them with sticks and bats, assuming the worst of them because of the color of their skin.”
The video also appears to show more than just Ruiz who confronted the group, but the Naperville Police Department has not made any other arrests.
“As a mother, the rage I feel is unfathomable. I hate that they had to experience something like this when they were only practicing their freedom of speech. You’ll see them walking away and yelling “we’re trying to leave,” while the Naperville residents continually followed them. I don’t want this happen to someone else’s child.”
Contact NPD
The Naperville Police Department said it is investigating other crimes that happened on June 1 and if you have any information to contact them at Crime Stoppers 630-420-6006.
Naperville News 17’s Christian Canizal reports.
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