A news reporter has called out a man who groped her on live TV while she was covering a running event over the weekend. Alex Bozarjian 23, who works for an NBC affiliate WSAV in Savannah, Georgia, was reporting on the local race from the Talmadge Bridge on Saturday.
“Woah, not expecting that,” she laughs as a runner in a gorilla suit passes by waving at the camera. “Some people also dress up in costumes for this bridge run, so it’s very exciting.” As she says “exciting”, she abruptly cuts off as a man wearing a navy blue top, hat and dark glasses appears to grope her. She looks visibly shocked as she continues her coverage while staring in the direction of the man. A clip of the incident has been viewed more than 7.5 million times since being posted to Twitter on Saturday. A tweet by Bozarjian later that day also went viral with nearly 146,000 retweets.
"To the man who smacked my butt on live TV this morning: You violated, objectified, and embarrassed me. No woman should EVER have to put up with this at work or anywhere!! Do better." Tweeted Georgia TV Reporter Alex Bozarjian on her Twitter page.
The man at the center of this has been identified as Thomas Callaway. Quick Bio: 43, married in 2015, stepdaughters, youth minister, Scout master, salesperson for Swedish Match (tobacco, out of Denmark) and 10K race number 7553. Callaway is, or was, a youth minister at Pittman Park UMC in nearby Statesboro, Ga. and a Boy Scout leader. Tommy Callaway told 'Inside Edition' he was going to wave at the camera during Alex Bozarjian's report on a fun run in Savannah, Georgia, and he got "caught up in the moment."
"I touched her back. I did not know exactly where I touched her … I did not see her facial reaction. I just kept on running, and if I did see her facial reaction, I would have been embarrassed. I'd have felt ashamed, and I would have stopped, turned around and went back and apologised to her."
The clip has inflamed many--- the utter gall of him to do it, doing it to someone who he sees has a camera right in front of her (and is in the middle of doing her job), the look of horror as Bozarjian realizes what he did, and then the way she tries to quickly get back to work. Within those few seconds, you see the kind of stuff that femme bodies have to deal with all the damn time.
Bozarjian filed a police report on the incident. On Wednesday, she said she supports criminal charges being filed against Callaway.
"I want to make it clear that this doesn't mean I can't/won't forgive him," Bozarjian said in a statement to CBS News. "I hope to get to that point eventually, but as in any sexual assault case, it has to be on my terms when I'm ready."
Bozarjian declined an in-person apology from the dude who slapped her ass, and good for her for not wasting her time on meeting this creep just so he'd give her some half-assed apology where he tries to say it was a mistake rather than being completely in character for him.
