VIDEO: Park Rangers Drag Gay Brooklyn Photog From Nudie Beach on Fourth of July

UPDATE, July 5, 7:30 p.m.: New York State Senator Brad Hoylman, the hip and openly gay Manhattan politician who represents some of the city's most upscale neighborhoods, scolded the U.S. Park Police in a statement Tuesday, saying officers should be "ashamed."

“Jacob Riis Park has been a safe and peaceful haven for LGBT beachgoers for decades," Hoylman said. "I find any harassment of beachgoers at Jacob Riis and the overwhelming display of force demonstrated by the United States Park Police yesterday to be utterly repugnant. It also seems to be an enormous diversion of resources. I’d hazard a guess that our police have more pressing concerns in this day and age than arresting a nude sunbather at a gay beach."

Original story below.

THE ROCKAWAYS, QUEENS — During this year's Fourth of July festivities, a gaggle of federal park rangers, some of them in plainclothes, dragged gay East Flatbush photographer Krys Fox off Jacob Riis beach — a historically clothing-optional and LGBT-friendly stretch of sand in the Rockaways — and down to a U.S. Park Police detention center.

His crime?

Going full nude on the beach, which doesn't (officially) allow nudity; arguing with park rangers; and refusing to leave the beach on his own accord, according to David Somma, a spokesman for the U.S. Park Police's New York field office.

Testimony, photos and videos of the ordeal from witnesses and advocates have since stacked up online.

"Do you know Krys Fox?" the man's friend, Shelton Pritchard Lindsay, wrote on Facebook. "He's one of the sweetest and kindest people I know. Let me repeat his naked body is seen as more dangerous than a gun."

Another Facebook user, Rio Sofia, wrote Tuesday:

"This beach has been a queer beach for decades, is predominantly Black and Latino. We have Stonewall veterans holding this beach down every year. It's the only beach I know in NYC that is relatively safe for trans people to frequent. However, the beach has been policed more and more intensely each year, ticketing and arresting people for drinking, 'indecent exposure,' peeing in the back by the fence (there's nowhere else to pee), and hooking up. If you go to this beach, watch out for this sh*t and for each other."

Fox said in interviews with the Daily Dot and DNAinfo that he was shooting portraits for a photo series near the beach's back fence Monday afternoon when his towel, which had been tied around his waist, slipped down around his ankles.

He said he was then tackled by a group of undercover park rangers.

Somma, the park police spokesman, told a different story.

"He was never tackled at any point in time," Somma said of Fox.

"The man told [the ranger], 'If you're going to give me a ticket, you should go talk to that guy who's completely nude,'" Somma said.

When cops approached Fox, according to the police narrative, "he made no attempt to cover himself up" and refused to show his ID, leave the beach or otherwise cooperate with police.

"He was being loud, making noises and drawing attention to himself," Somma said. "He escalated the situation because he just flat-out refused to cooperate."

So the cops wrapped a towel around Fox themselves, Somma said — and because "he refused to walk off the beach, they had to drag him off the beach." (As evidenced by the two videos above.)

Fox was charged with public nudity and disorderly conduct, the spokesman said. He can now either pay a fine or fight the charges in court.

Somma estimated that no more than 10 federal park police were patrolling Jacob Riis beach Monday.

Brooklyn resident Jax Jackson disputed that figure in a Facebook post. "What I saw was that suddenly there were 11 cops, 3 or more undercover, walking toward an area near the abandoned building fence," he wrote. "A naked person was tackled to the ground face first by a group of five cops and was screaming 'help me' while being dragged off the beach naked."

Patch has reached out to Fox for more on his experience.

"I'm still an American. And I still love my country. No matter what," he wrote online Tuesday. "But I'm going offline for a while... I'm overwhelmed and need to rest."

Shortly after, he wrote on Instagram: "Arrested for 'public nudity' when my towel fell down as I did a photoshoot where I shoot all summer every year. In my safe space."

"We have no more safe spaces," he wrote. "And there's still sand deep in my ears."