A pair of nudists came to the rescue when a deranged man began attacking tourists and store owners with a blow torch in San Francisco.
Nudists save man from blow torch attack
Pete Sferra and Lloyd Fishback were walking naked through the Castro neighborhood when they came across a “crazy kind of pirate guy” wielding a blowtorch as a weapon.
Shop owner Chris Watts shared on Facebook that the man “threatened my team with a blow torch after we locked the doors,” and huddled in fear inside the store.
Footage from the California incident shows Fishback snatch away the blowtorch, which caused the assailant to rain down punches on unsuspecting tourist.
Fishback stepped in to protect the tourist, and engaged in a half-naked brawl with the deranged man.
During the scuffle, a shop owner managed to snatch the blowtorch while the suspect was distracted and quickly ran away.
The struggle continued with Fishback knocking the man down and cracking the suspect in 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 recounted to The San Francisco Standard.
The attacker finally took enough of a beating and took off as police were called. Petros Fanourgiakis, a neighboring dessert shop owner, mentioned the man had threatened to blast the tourist in the face with the blowtorch.
“He’s a known problem in the neighborhood. He’s erratic and violent,” added Terry Asten Bennett, president of the Castro Merchants Association. “It’s completely unfair to a community when one person can hold it hostage.
The Castro Country Club had previously taken out a restraining order against Triball in 2021 but decided not to renew it due to the cost.
That year, Triball had threatened to burn down the building and take out the club’s executive director.
San Francisco Police identified the blowtorch wielding man as 38-year-old Zero Tribal and arrested him.
Thieves attempt to rob credit union with blow torch
Elsewhere, a welder attempting to break into a Washington credit union using a blowtorch was sentenced to five and a half years in prison.
34-year-old Randall Taufete’e, from Olympia, pleaded guilty to arson and attempted larceny of a credit union in March 2024.
Court documents revealed that on October 24, 2022, Tumwater, WA firefighters responded to a fire alarm at O Bee Credit Union.
Upon arrival, they saw an ATM on fire. After extinguishing the blaze and investigating, authorities found char and crowbar marks on the ATM, night deposit box, drive-through window, and exterior door.
Surveillance footage captured two men using a crowbar, electric saw, and blowtorch to break into the ATM and get into the building.
ATF agents reported that the pair left the credit union twice during the robbery and came back more tools. The Department of Justice reported that the damage amounted to $198,018.
“The damage to the teller window and the exterior door was consistent with the suspects attempting to access the interior of the credit union. It did not appear that the suspects had been able to successfully gained access to the interior,” the ATF report noted.
A few days later, police responded to a reported explosion and discovered Taufete’e at the scene.
The officers then found a camp set up in a field behind an apartment complex, where they found welders and torches.
“There was a large tent with mesh sides in which the officers saw a large safe,” the report detailed. “The officers observed that the door to the safe appeared to have been cut with a torch.”
Police identified Taufete’e as one of the men in the surveillance footage, and his Subaru station wagon matched the vehicle used to flee the scene.
Police found a gun inside the Subaru and arrested Taufete’e, a previously convicted felon, for unlawful possession of a firearm.
Brandon Ronald Collado, a 36-year-old from Olympia, was also found on scene, but not arrested at the time.
He was later indicted of the Credit Union robbery in January 2023 and pleaded guilty in June 2023. Collado was later sentenced to a year and a half in prison.
Prosecutors requested a 92-month sentence for Taufete’e, citing more than a dozen criminal convictions as an adult.
He will also be on three years of supervised release after he completes his prison term.
Taufete’e and Collado were also ordered to pay $198,018 for the damage they caused to the credit union during the attempted robbery.
