Canadian gay couple handcuffed by Mexican cops at a Tulum beach for kissing
Canadian gay couple are handcuffed by cops for kissing on Tulum beach – before angry crowd forces officers to release them
- A gay couple from Canada was arrested on a beach in Tulum, Mexico, for allegedly kissing at a beach on Sunday
- The Quintana Roo Tulum Police said its agents were responding to a complaint call after reports were made of individuals participating in ‘vulgar sexual acts’
- The cops were confronted by an angry group of beachgoers who demanded that they release the couple
A Canadian gay couple vacationing in the Mexican resort town of Tulum were briefly detained for kissing on a beach ‘near a group of children’.
Video footage recorded by a local women’s right’s activist Maritza Escalante on Sunday shows the moment the men were handcuffed together. A third man is also handcuffed in the back of the police pickup truck.
Quinana Roo Tulum Police said that officers were ‘responding to a complaint of obscene behavior involving several people’.
In the video, one of the arrested men can be heard saying ‘and that’s why they arrested us’ as he struggles to step into a police vehicle as a group of beachgoers surround it.
‘We are gay and we were kissing and that’s why they are taking us,’ he later says. ‘We are gay.’
The crowd chanted at the officers until the men were released.
A Canadian gay couple vacationing in the Mexican resort town of Tulum were briefly detained for kissing on a beach ‘near a group of children’. Pictured, one of the men arrested
Video footage recorded by a local women’s right’s activist Maritza Escalante on Sunday shows the moment the men were handcuffed together. A third man is also handcuffed in the back of the police pickup truck
Beachgoers surround two gay men while they were being arrested for allegedly kissing in public at a beach in Tulum, Mexico, on Sunday. The Quintana Roo Tulum Police said its agents were responding to a call involving several individuals who were engaging in lewd behavior. ‘We are an inclusive and impartial police both for residents and tourists who visit the state of Quintana Roo,’ the Quintana Roo Tulum Police said in a statement
Escalante said she was on a family beach trip when she noticed a police patrol unit approaching the gay men on their ATVs.
‘To my surprise and that of many who had also approached [the cops], the reason for their arrest was because they were gay and had kissed,’ Escalante wrote on Facebook.
‘The policemen were violent and gave arguments such as “there are families and children and they cannot be seeing this.” They were forced into the patrol and not allowed to go,’ she added.
‘All of us who were gathered were upset to see the situation. No matter how much we told them they [the police] were committing a crime, they would not let them go.’
A gay man from Canada told beachgoers that he and his partner ‘are gay and we were kissing and that’s why they are taking us’ while they were loaded into the back of a police pickup truck at a beach in Tulum, Mexico, on Sunday
A beachgoer confronts the Quintana Roo Tulum Police at a beach in Tulum on Sunday moments after cops apprehended three men, including a gay couple, following reports of individuals who were engaging in vulgar sexual acts in front of other families.
The Quintana Roo Tulum Police issued a statement Thursday saying the officers were responding to a call of several individuals engaging in vulgar sexual acts in front of other families.
After being pressured by the crowd, the officers soon removed the handcuffs from the three arrested men and allowed them to leave to prevent a riot.
In response to the arrest, Quintana Roo Tulum Police said: ‘We are an inclusive and impartial police both for residents and tourists who visit the state of Quintana Roo. So no abuse of authority will be tolerated.’
