The Kindness of Strangers Helps a Canadian Woman During Her "Creepy" Bar Harbor Walk
A TikTok video goes viral about one woman's encounter
BAR HARBOR—Sometimes scary events can lead you to good people. That’s what a Canadian woman said she found out May 3 after a frightening interaction on the streets of Bar Harbor.
Catherine Laquerre was visiting Bar Harbor with her husband when she was followed on the street. Her retelling of her experience in Bar Harbor has received over 166,000 views on TikTok as of Tuesday afternoon and 186,000 by Wednesday morning. She said she was surprised by the amount of people who watched the video. Her typical views range between 300 to 5,000.
“So, something really creepy happened while we were in Maine, USA,” the video begins. “I had a ten-minute walk at 8:45 p.m. from one restaurant to another.”
In the almost six-minute-long video posted on May 9, Laquerre, relays her thanks to a Pennsylvania couple who helped make her feel safe and comfortable after a frightening experience after she was walking alone from one Bar Harbor restaurant to another on the weekend of May 3.
“I just wanted to share so maybe even if only for one person it could help to have the reflex of asking for help and finding a group (with women in it) if ever they feel unsafe and to say thank you to that Pennsylvania family,” she said, May 14. “I’m so grateful…. I really don’t know what could have happened without their help.”
According to the video and comments beneath it, Laquerre and her husband were finishing up appetizers and listening to live music at a location in town. She is unsure of the name of that restaurant, she said on Tuesday afternoon.
They wanted to have dinner at the Thirsty Whale because she hoped to try the Whale’s chili, and she knew that the restaurant was only serving until nine before the kitchen closed. She went ahead, she says in the video, so that they wouldn’t miss the window to order and her husband stayed behind to pay the bill.
As she was walking, she saw a man leaning against a wall. He gave her a funny feeling. “He’s not really looking at his phone or anything, he’s just looking around.”
He looked at her when she was about 30 feet away and turned his ball cap to the front, which obscured his face.
“I walk past him and as soon as I walk past him, he gets up and he starts following me,” she said.
She walked faster. He walked faster. He called after her, “Hey, where are you going with those long legs?”
He followed her, she says, and screamed inappropriate things. This happened for about two to three minutes, she said. Her nerves and adrenalin were racing and she knew that she had to turn left onto a street to get to the Whale. This would indicate that she was either coming from another establishment on lower Main Street or somewhere on Route 3 if she was traveling a direct route from one restaurant to another.
The streets, she said, were empty and the restaurants were closed because the tourist season hadn’t fully begun. She spotted a family walking out of a restaurant with two women in it, the daughters, who were in their late twenties, similar to her age.
“I just ran into their group and said, ‘Hey can you pretend to know me because there is a guy following me?’” Laquerre related.
As soon as the man saw her talking to the family, he sat down and waited and stared, she said.
But the family wasn’t about to leave Laquerre alone.
“They said, ‘Where are you going? We’re going to walk you to where you need to be.’”
The group from Pennsylvania walked with her to make sure she got to the Whale. The man kept following. They walked into the Whale with her and waited with her until her spouse came to the restaurant.
“It was super scary,” she said. “I was so grateful for this family and for the timing.”
However, she said, “It’s so sad. I only had to walk to one restaurant to another.”
In a follow-up video, she said it was important for Maine people to know that the Maine people she met were nice. She said that she loved the state, the ocean, the forest.
“And the moose,” she said, “there are so many moose everywhere.”
However, she and commenters said that scary things can happen anywhere, even in the safest of places. She also said on Tuesday via message that the man did not touch her, and she wanted to stress that she wasn’t physically hurt during the encounter. Her gratitude toward the Pennsylvania family is what she wanted highlighted.
Strangers helping strangers, acts of kindness that are often unexpected aren’t always highlighted in stories. We learn of the bad things, the horrifying conclusions, but not as often about the people who take care of each other and save the day. That’s important, too.
According to City-Data.com, the crime rate in Bar Harbor Maine is 8.3 times smaller than the national average in 2022. It writes, “In the last five years, Bar Harbor has seen decreasing violent crime and decreasing property crime.”
According to the State of Maine for 2020 (the last data online), the crime rate for Maine was 12.85 per 1,000. For that same year, Bar Harbor’s crime rate was 5.83.
It also has more officers than the Maine average.
On social media, many people sympathized with her experience and some questioned why she didn’t immediately call the police for help. Laquerre is Canadian and was uncomfortable calling the police in another country, she said. She also said that in the moment, she was just so stressed that she didn’t think of it.
Bar Harbor and Mount Desert Police Chief David Kerns said Wednesday morning that Bar Harbor has had no stranger assaults reported to the police in the last year at least. There have also been no other complaints to the police department similar to Laquerre’s. They have no calls to the department about her incident from her, the Pennsylvania family, or any area restaurants.
According to the TikTok comments, the incident has made some local women worried about who the man might have been. That might never be known.
“It was super dark and he did turn his cap around, but before he did, I saw he was a tall and skinny Caucasian man. No apparent accent when he spoke, but I feel like the adrenaline and the fear has kind of blocked out the details.… I was really scared and looking to find help,” she said.
She’d like for others to learn from the experience.
“The most important point of this all for me is the last point in my part two video about how if someone comes to you for help please listen, believe them and help them like that family did,” she said.
UPDATE: Laquerre reached out to the police via email on May 15 at 11:35 a.m. This was verified by the police.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
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The follow-up video which has 13,000 views as of Wednesday morning:
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"And the moose,” she said, “there are so many moose everywhere.” Really?? Would love to know where she saw them. I do not believe this is a legimate story.
Feels a little "off" to me. She states he was "...leaning against a building" but, after she went past he "got up...". Secondly if one was walking at a fast pace, almost running, one would be through town in under 15 minutes.