Group of dads tackle, restrain sex offender accused of peeping at teen in Cracker Barrel bathroom
Douglas Lane, 53, of Charlotte, NC, is charged with voyeurism, simple possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia (Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office).
DUNCAN, S.C. - A group of fathers helped police arrest a man accused of looking under stalls in a South Carolina Cracker Barrel ladies room, reports say.
Duncan Police Chief Carl Long told WSPA that a 15-year-old girl in town for a softball tournament was in the bathroom at the Cracker Barrel on the 1500 block of East Main Street when she noticed something was moving near her feet. When she looked down, Long said she saw that a man's head from the stall next to her.
Witnesses told WSPA that during the incident the 15-year-old victim was not the only girl in the bathroom at the time.
“I’ll never forget the way they looked after,” the witness said. “They were traumatized.”
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The girl told her father, who confronted the man, identified as 53-year-old Douglas Lane, of Charlotte, NC, after an employee got him out of the bathroom. When Lane tried to leave the restaurant, the police chief said a group of fathers tackled him and kept him restrained until officers got to the scene.
A witness inside the restaurant told WYFF that he saw a man with a bloody nose run outside before being tackled in the parking lot.
Lane has been charged with voyeurism, simple possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia.
According to government records, Lane has been a registered sex offender in North Carolina since 2004, when he was convicted of secretly peeking into an occupied room in Mecklenburg County. In that case, the record shows his victims were 8 and 9 years old.
Four years later in the same county, Lane was convicted of secretly peeking into an occupied room with his victim being 18 or older.
South Carolina's sex offender registry finds that Lane was convicted of peeping, voyeurism or aggravated voyeurism in 1997 and failure to register in 1999.
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