An MMA fighter on the beach was forced to demonstrate her fighting skills to emphatically dispatch a man reportedly touching himself next to her.
Joyce Vieira, a 27-year-old fighter from Brazil, was relaxing and taking photos at a beach in Rio de Janeiro with a friend when a man, now named as 26-year-old Josenei Viana Ferreira, began to play with himself with his shorts pulled down.
Here is Joyce Vieira going through an intense training session before a fight:"When I looked over there [at Ferreira] he had his shorts down and was standing on a path where people pass all the time, including children. He was visibly erect, making sounds and moaning," Vieira explained to local outlet Folha de São Paulo, with translation obtained by Deadspin.
At first, Vieira did not quite understand what was going on, not initially registering that Ferreira had his shorts down. Approaching the man and asking him to stop, Ferreira reportedly replied: "Why, you don’t like it? Come here."
It was at this moment that Vieira snapped. "It was very surreal. Generally people who are caught doing this always deny it, ‘No, no, no.’ He didn’t. He continued," she revealed, and went to kick at the man. It was then that Ferreira punched back at her.
"The punch made me even angrier. I wanted to kill him," said Vieira. There was a brief photoshoot of the MMA fighter attacking Ferreira, who began to fight back but quickly realised that he was completely outmatched. "When the guy saw that it was going to get real, he started screaming," she recalled.
Before long, Ferreira was arrested, but upon giving a statement denying that he had touched himself next to Vieira was released - a development that was very unwelcome to Joyce Vieira. "We feel powerless," she explained in the aftermath of Ferreira's release.
"It’s very strange because he’s going to be in the same city as me, and who knows he might be in the same places. That’s why I have received an innumerable number of messages from women saying that (in similar situations) they didn’t file a report, because they know the suspects would end up being released. I think the punishment for these cases should be more severe."
The case between Vieira and Ferreira is still ongoing, where it will be taken to the Public Ministry.
