Another Man Grabbed A Woman Reporter While She Was Trying To Do Her Job Live On-Air

Illinois television reporter Gaynor Hall was doing her job when a man ran up and assaulted her while she was live on air. Hall, 37, had been providing viewers with a weather update in Shorewood, Illinois, on Saturday evening when a man jumped into the live shot, grabbed hold of her, and blurted out an obscenity. The man has since been arrested for assault.

The incident took place while Hall was reporting on wind damage that had occurred 45 miles south of Chicago.

According to Shorewood police, 20-year-old Eric Farina was the man in the video who “grabbed the reporter around her shoulders and uttered a profane and disturbing statement.” Upon his arrest, Farina was charged with disorderly conduct and battery. “Shorewood Detectives located Farina on Sunday morning at his residence,” the police said in a statement. “Farina made a full confession and was placed under arrest, bonded, and released.”

Farina was ultimately released on a $2,500 bond. His arrest came at the hands of help from the community.

Hall reached out to her friends and followers on Facebook and asked for help with identifying her assailant on.

“Thanks to your help, he was identified and arrested. Thank you all so much for your kind words and support. I am ok and I appreciate you more than you know,” Hall wrote in a post to her Facebook page.

Before his arrest, Hall published a post with Farina’s face during the attack writing “A brief note to the young man who jumped in my live shot tonight: It was not funny. You violated my personal space. You grabbed me. You scared me. Was it worth it?”

Unfortunately, incidents like these happen often to women reporters.

In December of last year, a video was posted to Twitter of WSAV reporter Alex Bozarjian being assaulted on live television. The video showed Bozarjian smiling in front of a crowd of joggers who were running the annual Enmarket Savannah Bridge Run in Georgia. Runners streamed behind her, occasionally interrupting her reporting and making goofy faces to the camera. Things took a dark turn when a male jogger came up behind Bozarjian and slapped her on the butt before he continued on his run.

Bozarjian was visibly rattled by the incident, her face appeared shocked as she struggled to regain her composure, and stumbled over her words before continuing to do her job. A concerned viewer, Twitter-user @GrrrlZilla, recorded the incident and posted a video of it to her Twitter account. “We watch @WSAV in our house every single morning,” she said in a follow-up Tweet. “Their staff is like extended family to us. I’m furious about this.” Soon after the incident, the jogger was identified by internet sleuths as Georgia man Tommy Callaway and it turned out he spends his time as a youth minister.

According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 63% of sexual assaults go unreported and according to The Office of Civil Rights & Sexual Misconduct women decide not to make the reports for various reasons but one of the number one reasons including not being believed or fearing that the justice system will not consider the crime “serious enough”

Check out a video of the incident here.