Ridgefield town worker charged in YouTuber incident
RIDGEFIELD — The Town Hall employee arrested Thursday on a disorderly conduct charge after swatting a folder at a YouTuber is scheduled to be arraigned in court next week.
Officers responded to a report of a “disturbance” at Ridgefield Town Hall around 1:50 p.m. Friday, and the “investigation on scene” led them to arrest Patricia Pacheco, according to a police report.
Pacheco, 57, was charged with disorderly conduct — a misdemeanor — and released on a written promise to appear Dec. 16 in state Superior Court in Danbury, according to the Ridgefield Police Department report.
She was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation, according to Marconi, who described the YouTubers’ behavior as “intimidating,” but acknowledged they didn’t break any rules.
One of the YouTubers said he wouldn’t press charges if she apologized, but the officer told him that she declined, according to the video.
The first selectman has said the employee became frustrated when she was video recorded by two men associated with Accountability For All, a group that records videos — typically of public officials in their work settings — and uploads them to YouTube. The group calls themselves
auditors of the First Amendment.
After wandering the first two floors of Town Hall, talking to and asking people questions while recording them with cell phone video cameras, the YouTubers made their way to the accounting department on the third floor, according to their video.
In the accounting department area, they started recording a female town hall employee — identified in the Ridgefield police report as Pacheco — while she was sitting in her office.
The video uploaded to Accountability For All’s YouTube page shows Pacheco repeatedly asking them to stop filming her and getting upset when they refused.
After Pacheco states she’s going to “hit the panic button” and starts reaching under her desk, the camera pans to an office across the hall, where another Town Hall employee is sitting behind a desk.
The YouTubers start talking to him about a Grinch Day proclamation they learned the town was having later that afternoon, as well as Pacheco’s reaction to them filming her.
While the YouTubers are talking to the male employee, the camera pans to Pacheco. After seeing the camera back on her, she slams down a phone she’s holding to her ear, gets up from her desk and tells them to “get the [expletive] out.”
She then approaches one of the YouTubers, holding a file folder in front of her face, hits the camera with it and walks away.
First Selectman Rudy Marconi told Hearst Connecticut Media the phone, in turn, allegedly struck the man in the upper lip, prompting him to file charges.
The police report does not indicate who reported the disturbance, but the Town Hall employee across the hall from Pacheco’s office appears to have placed the call in the video uploaded to YouTube.
Danbury incidents
Thursday’s incident at Ridgefield Town Hall is reminiscent of the incidents in Danbury last year involving a man from Long Island, N.Y., named SeanPaul Reyes.
The police were called on Reyes for filming at the Danbury Public Library in June 2021, and at Danbury City Hall the following month.
During the library incident, security asked Reyes to leave because he was taking video, which he later uploaded to YouTube, but he refused and Danbury police were called. The response by police raised questions about not only their actions, but whether it should be allowable for someone to film or record inside a public building.
Four Danbury police officers who responded were reprimanded for violating various department policies following an internal investigation, and Reyes filed a federal lawsuit against city officials involved. Online court records show the case was dismissed this past March.
Reyes faces public disturbance and simple trespass charges stemming from a July 2021 incident at Danbury City Hall, where he was confronted by a security guard and another city employee for filming in the building. Reyes pleaded not guilty to the two infractions and has a court trial event scheduled for Jan. 17, at state Superior Court in Danbury.