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By Danielle Furfaro
Brooklyn Daily
They were trapped in the water closet.
A woman claims a vindictive parks employee locked her and seven other women and children in a McCarren Park bathroom at closing time on Memorial Day because the line to the loo was taking too long. The Greenpoint woman said she is angry about the incident, which she says left her screaming and pounding on the bathroom door while the woman’s five-year-old daughter and boyfriend stood outside. The captivity lasted a few long, scary minutes and it was no accident, she said.
“It was so obviously occupied,” said Jenny Harris, who works across the street at Beacon’s Closet and was spending the day at the Williamsburg greensward with her family and friends when she says she got locked in. “It was malicious and kind of twisted. There is no reason for that to ever happen.”
The park worker was angry that the handful of women on line for the park bathroom were still waiting a few minutes after 7 pm, when the comfort station was scheduled to close, Harris said.
The line was about eight women deep when an employee came by and told those waiting they would have to step aside because it was time to lock the lavatory. The ladies argued that they had been waiting since before closing time and that the facilities were so foul they had left the park and come back with their own toilet paper.
The staffer bowed out of the confrontation, but minutes later, Harris was in a stall and heard a slam and the unmistakable sound of a deadbolt being pulled, she said.
She finished her business and left the stall to find that she, the woman and infant in the next stall, and five of her other line-mates were all trapped, she said.
Harris and a couple of others banged on the door and screamed to be let out, she said. Another few minutes passed before a worker opened the door, smirking, she claimed.
“He had this look on his face like ‘Ha ha. This is super funny,’ ” said Harris of the young man. “You would not have that look on your face if you were not the one who did it.”
She said she is certain that the groundskeeper knew the restroom was occupied.
“It is a small bathroom and you cannot miss people in line waiting,” she said.
Harris said she filed a complaint with the city.
A parks department spokeswoman said the agency is investigating the incident.