Background: An image from Disney World’s new Starlight parade (Disney Parks/YouTube). Inset: Martha Lucia Zapata-Echeverri (Orange County Sheriff’s Office).
A tourist visiting Walt Disney World left her Florida vacation with some unexpected souvenirs — a mug shot and a child abuse charge.
Martha Lucia Zapata-Echeverri, 51, visited Disney World in Orlando to see the new Disney Starlight parade at the Magic Kingdom on Monday. As per an arrest report reviewed by Law&Crime, Zapata-Echeverri intended to watch the nighttime parade in the same vicinity as a 17-year-old girl. To improve her view, Zapata-Echeverri “put her hand” on the girl while “trying to make space.” The teenager instructed the older woman in Spanish not to touch her.
The report states that when the teenager stepped aside to allow someone else to pass, Zapata-Echeverri allegedly “grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to the side.”
Police stated that they responded to reports of an altercation at the Magic Kingdom on Monday night at 9:40 p.m. When they arrived at the scene on Main Street U.S.A., sheriff’s deputies separated the woman and the teenager and brought them to the park’s security offices to interview them.
According to the arrest report, Zapata-Echeverri told police after the altercation that she was trying to follow her daughter towards the front of the crowd to better view the parade. She told police that the teenager was pushing into her and telling her that the older woman was in “her spot.” Zapata-Echeverri then said she pushed the teenager back with her left arm.
When the officer asked Zapata-Echeverri how the teenager ended up with “nail marks” on her arm, she insisted that she only touched the girl with an open hand. Police said that the teenager had a “small abrasion and bruise on her arm” as a result of the alleged altercation. According to the report, there were no other witnesses to the altercation, nor was the alleged incident captured by surveillance cameras.
Zapata-Echeverri was charged with one count of child abuse and booked into the Orange County Jail. During her court appearance on Tuesday, her attorney said that she was in Florida on a tourist visa and was planning to fly back to her home country on Wednesday. A judge reduced her bail to $2,500, which was posted, and told her not to enter any other Disney parks.
