Naked Man Detained Near Court Buildings

“Perhaps his shorts are too itchy,” said one observer Monday as an unidentified man repeatedly put on and removed his shorts, threw them at passers-by and wandered naked around the southwest intersection next to the court buildings and in front of The Tico Times office in downtown San José.

After nearly 30 minutes of antics – half of which were observed by a police officer who declined to be named and cited AIDS and the fear that the man could “throw himself on top of him” as reasons why he wouldn’t detain the man – a police truck arrived to take the nudist away. Officials said they were unsure exactly where he would be taken and said they expected he would soon be back on the streets.

“The drug addicts and the crazies – in this country, nobody will take them,” said Gerardo Castro, the police officer driving the truck that whisked the partially clothed man away.

The man, who mumbled unintelligibly when questioned, wore only a pair of dirty orange shorts and had a swollen left foot and various scrapes on his body.When police arrived, he hurried into the back of the truck as requested, his shorts slipping back toward the ground.