VANCOUVER -- A journalist in Puerto Vallarta claims one of two men who accosted her, yelling profanities and grabbing at her camera, is a Canadian man from White Rock, B.C.
Doraliz Terron says she was on Los Muertos Beach, working on a story about tourists ignoring orders to stay away from public beaches in order to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, when the confrontation took place.
Terron’s video shows a shirtless man in blue shorts get out of a beach chair and storm towards her.
"Nobody wants you filming us," the man yells at Terron while attempting to grab her camera.
"I don't care," she replies, trying to explain that she’s a working journalist.
"Go! We don’t want you here," the man yells in the video, adding profanity.
The man seems to think Terron needs permission to film people on the beach but she tells him because it is a public place she does not.
In an interview with CTV News, Terron explained how she felt having a tourist in her own country tell her she’s not welcome there.
"When I heard that, I only have to say I don't care because it's my country," said Terron. "You are in Mexico. I don't care because this place is public."
Terron kept her camera rolling the whole time and soon captured threatening gestures made by a second man who had been sitting with the first.
"You heard what we said," the second man told Terron while raising a clenched fist. "Get lost."
Terron's video has been widely shared in Mexico and she has since heard from people who watched it that one of the men is American and the other is from White Rock.
CTV News has not been able to verify the men's identities.
The incident has caught the attention of both the American and Canadian ambassadors to Mexico.
"What a shame!" reads part of a tweet from U.S. ambassador Christopher Landau.
"I fully agree…completely unacceptable," replied Graeme C. Clark, Canada's ambassador.
Terron said she immediately reported the incident to Mexican police but was told even though she has a video nothing could be done about it.
"They said the person is a foreign tourist and they have a lot of human rights and they (can) do nothing for me," she said. "I feel a lot of anger."
Although she will never forget the experience, she said she will not let it tarnish her opinion of tourists, particularly Canadians.
