The woman shown in a recent viral video being harassed for wearing a Puerto Rico shirt said she's disappointed the officer who failed to intervene resigned without a public hearing, but is happy he won't do the same to others.
"I am severely disappointed. I will never get to hear from this man, this protector, his reasoning about why my safety — no, my life — had so little value to him," Mia Irizarry, 24, said at a press conference Friday. "Secondly, I feel indescribable joy. This man will never be in a position to serve and protect a life yet turn away again."
She aired some of the questions that she felt had not yet been answered and called the officer, Patrick Connor, a "coward to run away when his discrepancies were brought to light when justice was to be served."
"How could this man, who had been on the force for 10 years, defend his lack of action?" she said. "How can an American deny a fellow American help?"
Irizarry posted a video of Timothy Trybus, 62, confronting her with a racist rant as she was setting up for her own birthday party at a Chicago park in June and wearing a shirt with the Puerto Rican flag on it.
"You should not be wearing that in the United States of America," Trybus said, referring to her shirt. "Are you a citizen? Are you a United States citizen?"
Irizarry asked Trybus to leave her alone and then asked nearby Connor, a Cook County Forest Preserves officer, for help, but he ignored her plea.
The video was posted in June, but only recently started getting more attention — it now has more than 1.5 million views on Facebook. The video prompted prominent activists and politicians to respond, including Puerto Rico's governor, who said he was "appalled, shocked, and disturbed by the officer’s behavior."
Connor resigned amid the ensuing fallout. And Trybus has since been charged with two felony hate crimes.