Hardcore Musician Stops a Baby Abduction Attempt in NYC

Simultaneously proving that heavy music musicians have hearts of gold and that all those hundreds of hours folks spend learning martial arts aren’t for naught, hardcore musician Brian Kemsley stopped an attempted baby abduction on the streets of New York City earlier this month.

You read that correctly: a baby abduction. Kemsley, who is a Muay Thai instructor and played in the now defunct hardcore band Outbreak, intervened when he saw a man attempt to make off with a baby snatched directly out of a woman’s stroller on November 9.

The New York Daily News reports that Kemsley was sitting on a bench in Madison Square Park when he heard a woman scream. His fight instinct won out over flight, and he decided to intervene.

Two men were already involved in trying to subdue the attacker when Kemsley jumped in. “The man is saying things like, ‘How do you know this isn’t my baby? Why are you helping her?’ Kemsley said of the abductor. “‘This could be my baby, you don’t know that,’” he said the man claimed, adding that he appeared to be mentally ill. “Throughout the whole thing, it became clear that this man actually had mental issues.”

When the attacker became violent, Kemsley used a “rear naked choke” to bring the man to the ground, then used a “seatbelt hold” to keep him there for nearly 15 minutes until help arrived.

Dramatic video of the incident filmed by a bystander shows Kemsley bringing the attacker to the ground and holding him there while the man screams obscenities. You can watch that below.

Kemsley said he was just doing what any bystander should. “The bar for being a hero should not be this low,” he said. “It should be a duty, a civic duty for all to do.”

After the police finally arrived, the attacker was brought to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric evaluation.

[via Lambgoat]