Tulsa police issued a public plea Saturday for help catching a man they say has repeatedly defecated at local businesses while wearing minimal clothing.
The Tulsa Police Department turned to Facebook over the weekend to ask the public for tips about the suspect, who officers say has struck multiple times at a shopping center south of downtown. Cops first responded to the area around 4:30 a.m. Wednesday after reports of a mostly naked man using dog waste bags to relieve himself and then smearing feces on walls and doors of at least one business, according to police.
The business owner had installed security cameras after previous incidents, and the footage captured the man in the act on several occasions. Police described his outfit as “only a thong, a cut-open mask and a shower cap.” The videos also show him wearing glasses, red Crocs, a black cross-body bag, purple latex gloves and a black shower cap. In one clip, he exposes himself to the camera before once again defecating into a dog waste bag. His medical face mask had been cut open, showing nearly his entire face.
Officers have responded to the area multiple times but have so far failed to locate the man. The department’s social media post struck an unusually frank tone about the bizarre case.
“Help us find this guy,” the Tulsa Police Department wrote on its Facebook page Saturday.
“Please, if you know where we can find him, we’d love to relieve these business owners.”
Police did not specify how many businesses have been affected or provide an exact timeline of the incidents beyond the Wednesday morning call and the owner’s subsequent camera footage. The suspect’s motivation remains unclear, though the case fits a pattern of similar incidents that have drawn national attention in recent years.
In the viral moment that has since spread across social media, the Tulsa suspect’s distinctive outfit—particularly the combination of a thong, modified medical mask and shower cap—has drawn both disgust and dark humor from online commenters. The case joins a small but notorious roster of public defecation incidents that have earned media nicknames and widespread attention. Past examples include Colorado’s “Mad Pooper,” a woman who was caught relieving herself outside a family’s home in 2017; the “Parking Lot Pooper” of Ashland, Massachusetts; and New Jersey’s “Pooperintendent of Schools,” a superintendent who was accused of repeatedly defecating on a high school track in 2018.
A psychologist who has studied the phenomenon told outlets that such “serial poopers” often seek a thrill by “pushing the envelope and getting to the edge of civil behavior.” The behavior falls into a category of acts that combine exhibitionism with deliberate violation of social norms, though police have not suggested any specific psychological profile for the Tulsa suspect.