CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Parents thought it was unsettling when they saw a stranger walk into Miss Donna's School of Dance on Sardis Road North Wednesday afternoon.
"I'd never seen him before, and no one recognized him either," said one parent, Amanda, who didn't want to give her last name.
"I said, 'we need to keep an eye on him, I don't think he belongs here."
The man walked into the dance studio, walked back into another room, and then came back out and left. Parents watched him look into a few other store fronts at the busy shopping center, then walk into Harris Teeter.
Amanda said an hour later he was back, and everyone was shocked.
"Two moms are sitting there and they look over and say 'are you seeing what I'm seeing? Oh my god, is this really happening?" Amanda said.
Police said the man was sexually touching himself in a small office inside the dance school. Parents could see him from the waiting room through a tiled glass window near the door. The children in their dance classes could not see him.
Amanda made the 911 call immediately.
"I realized we have to call 911, gotta get these kids somewhere, gotta make sure no one leaves," she said.
Parents made sure dozens of children were out of the way, and the father of one child shut the man inside the office where he was still exposing himself, and held him there.
"We just had a dad stand on the other side of the door. The guy on the inside, he didn't try to open it, didn't jiggle the handle, or escape. He just continued his act," Amanda said.
Donna Mitzel owns the dance studio she's been involved with for more than 50 years. She told us, she was immediately concerned because so many students were there.
"I had about 125 children there at the time. You know he didn't pull a gun or anything and he wasn't acting violent or anything, but he was noticeably not there for any good cause," she said
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police arrested 24-year-old Juan David Martinez and charged him with indecent exposure. He was released on a $1,000 bond the following day.
Parents told Channel 9 they're concerned about that, because police told them Martinez was new to the area, homeless, and possibly staying in a hotel nearby.
They worry it'll happen again.
WSOC
