Geraldo Rivera may have managed to make a few celebrity-struck suburban
Washington, D.C., Hooters waitresses forget about the sniper who has terrorized the
area, but, not surprisingly, not everyone saw it that way.
Rivera was in Fredericksburg, Va., last week reporting from a gas station
where a man had been killed by a sniper. He apparently stopped off in a
nearby Hooters restaurant, whose emblem is an owl but whose focus of interest
isn't. He reportedly autographed the revealing shorts on some of the backsides
of the famously underdressed waitresses.
According to Michael Zitz, of The Free Lance-Star, a Hooters patron
told the local newspaper he found Rivera's cheerful demeanor distasteful.
The restaurant, the paper said, is about 50 yards from the site of the
shooting. Rivera relayed a comment to the paper through a Fox spokesman to the
effect that he was "honoring the requests of his adoring fans."
The spokesman told the paper that it was one of many autograph sessions for
the well-known journalist, including at the Waffle House, also nearby, and for
sheriff's deputies.
