A Bremerton man, age 23, was arrested on March 11 for taking photos of women in a restaurant bathroom last Friday.

At 9 p.m. on March 6 at the Old Country Buffet in Federal Way, police responded to reports that a male was taking pictures of women in the women’s bathroom. The restaurant’s manager told police a customer approached her and said someone had taken a picture of his girlfriend while she was in the bathroom.

According to the police report, the manager quickly entered the women’s bathroom and saw a male’s arm extend from a stall to the next. A camera was in his hand and it appeared he was taking a picture.

She left the bathroom to tell an employee and returned to see the man exiting the stall. She told him to stay seated as police arrived. He told her he really had to use the restroom and that’s why he was in there. After a few minutes of waiting, he said he did nothing wrong and pushed past the manager, leaving.

But the manager followed him to his car and took down his license plate. When she returned to the restaurant, a woman approached her and said the man had also taken photos of her daughter, who appeared to be 5 or 6 years old.

Police ran the license plate and found the vehicle was stopped in Auburn with a driver matching the description witnesses gave. The man was born in 1991 and is a convicted felon with a sex/kidnapper offender record, police said.

The man’s criminal history indicates he was stopped on March 9 for a traffic infraction in Olympia, five days after the alleged voyeurism.

The Mirror does not name suspects until they are formally charged with a crime.