Mike Urban of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer relates that he took the controversial 2001 photograph after scrambling to a fire escape to avoid a violent crowd.

"I saw this woman who in typical Mardi Gras fashion was asked to raise her top," Urban recalled to Poynter.org. "When she refused, they [the men around her] began to reach at her and tear her clothes...

It happened so fast that the sea of people cleared and the woman just disappeared. There was no time for me to do anything."