A grandfather-of-two was among a pair of nudists who took down a crazed man who was attacking tourists and shop owners on the streets of San Francisco with a blowtorch.
Grandfather Pete Sferra from San Jose was walking in the Castro area of the city with his friend Lloyd Fishback, who lives in town.
The area of the city is a bustling neighborhood, known for its openly gay culture.
The pair came across a ‘crazy kind of pirate guy’ with a blowtorch that he was threatening to use as a weapon.
Shop owner Chris Watts wrote on Facebook how the man ‘threatened my team with a blow torch after we locked the doors’ in what was a scary encounter.
Petros Fanourgiakis, who runs the nearby Aegean Delights dessert shop and said the man threatened to burn the tourist’s face.
Video from the scene shows Fishback, the younger of the two nudists, grab the blowtorch before the man starts punching the tourist.
Both Fishback and the man tumble into the street while one of the shop owners manages to snatch the blow torch away.
Fishback didn’t stop there and follow up with another underhand smack to the face.
‘My buddy Lloyd is a quiet, respectful guy but he didn’t waste any time and nailed the guy with a right hook,’ Sferra said to The San Francisco Standard.
It was then the attacker got the message and walked away. In the meantime the police were called.
‘He’s a known problem in the neighborhood. He’s erratic and violent,’ said Terry Asten Bennett, president of the Castro Merchants Association.
‘It’s completely unfair to a community when one person can hold it hostage,’ Bennett said.
Even the Castro Country Club had obtained a restraining order against Triball in 2021 but decided to not renew the order because it was too expensive.
In that case, Triball had threatened to burn down the building and kill the club’s executive director.
San Francisco Police also appeared to be familiar with the suspect who was arrested and identified as 38-year-old Zero Triball.
Triball is suspected of assault with a deadly weapon and remains in county jail.
‘In my view, he’s a guy who’ll continue committing medium violent crimes,’ said Rafael Mandelman who is a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
‘I don’t think he should be left to manage his own life. He should be in a conservatorship. Our system is crazy.’
The person who was on vacation in the city and was seen being attacked in the video has not been identified but is believed to be a Brazilian man named Leo
‘I hate seeing tourists experience that kind of stuff,’ Sferra said.
Explaining his interest in nudism, Sferra has said that he wants to normalize the practice.
‘Over the years we’ve been doing this, we’ve tried to show the neighborhood that we’re regular people—we just have a relaxed idea of what we’re supposed to wear,. We just want to be seen as good contributing members of the community,’ Sferra explained.