The Facebook account of Candice Spivey is getting plenty of attention for a video that Spivey captured of a man who approached Candice while she shopped in the bikini section of Target in Yulee, Florida.
WATCH: Woman in Target confronts man who is known for preying on women in public places; man later arrested https://t.co/u4SoIwYqeF
— Good Morning America (@GMA) May 2, 2016
As reported by ABC News , police have identified the man in Candice’s video as Jeffrey Polizzi and provided photos of Jeffrey’s previous mugshot. Court documents show that Polizzi was convicted in 2009 of taking photos of women in dressing rooms.
Candice wrote that Jeffrey approached her in a Publix grocery store two years ago while he was with his children. Spivey wrote that Jeffrey at first spoke about his wife and a maxi dress that his wife bought. Initially, the conversation seemed innocent enough, but Candice wrote that she could tell by the way Jeffrey held his cellphone that he was recording her on video during their initial meeting.
“If that is what you have to do to be safe and protect yourself, you do what you got to do,” Candice Spivey said. https://t.co/xwz19t26kj
— 20/20 (@ABC2020) May 2, 2016
Jeffrey’s conversation turned from seemingly innocent to sleazy when Spivey wrote that Polizzi began making comments about whether or not his wife should wear underwear beneath her dress and making comments about shaving her bikini area. Then Candice wrote that Polizzi began asking her inappropriate questions about her private parts, and as a result, Spivey reported Jeffrey to Publix store officials, who banned Polizzi from their stores.
Warning: In the Facebook video uploaded on Wednesday, April 27 , Candice uses language that might be offensive to some viewers. Spivey apologized for the language in the Facebook video, explaining that her adrenaline was going .
Candice issued a warning to Jacksonville, Florida, which ended up going viral nationwide after being approached by Jeffrey. Spivey described her experience and explained Polizzi’s modus operandi in dealing with women in order to warn others about his approach.
“When he approached me yesterday he did not remember who I was, until I called him out on it in this video. When he approached me in Publix two years ago he had two small children with him under the age of three in his shopping cart. The basket of his shopping cart was filled with multiple different types of razors that were for both men and women. He starts out his conversation with the same punch line he uses here in the very beginning of this video saying, ‘Hey there I don’t mean to bother you but I just bought this maxi dress for my wife at Ross and I was kinda worried about the sheerness of it.’”
“He says his wife has put on weight after giving birth and he uses her as a way to start asking questions that get extremely inappropriate. For instance he starts asking [if] his wife should wear the maxi dress with no panties, and if she should shave ‘down there’ trying to make it seem very innocent in the way he’s asking. He then asks if you’re wearing panties, etc.”
Spivey went on to explain that she’d had enough of being approached a second time by Polizzi, and apparently Candice’s Facebook video hit a nerve with the nation.
Witnessing the man running away from her and dropping his Target basket full of razors, Candice takes off running after Jeffrey and screams for others to stop him and call the police.
With his truck still parked in Target’s parking lot, Polizzi eventually returned to Target, wrote Candice, and spun out in front of the police. Jeffrey gave chase and was eventually caught.
Candice wrote about Polizzi’s reported problem with pornography, as Spivey said Jeffrey told police. Candice also claims police told her Jeffrey has been in trouble for filming minors and strapping cameras to his shoes to record videos under girls’ skirts.
[Photo by AP Photo/Chris O’Meara, File]