Hardcore Guitarist Stops Man From Abducting Baby Using MMA Chokehold

The-Pit-Filler-Image
Unsplash/Yvette de Wit
Published on:

Fans of New England hardcore might know Brian Kemsley as the guitarist of now-defunct band Outbreak. But these days Kemsley is a Muay Thai instructor — and, apparently, a hero. According to a recent news article, Kemsley stopped a mentally-ill man from abducting a baby in New York City.

As reported in the New York Daily News and elaborated by Metal Injection, Kemsley and his girlfriend were in NYC’s Madison Square Park when they heard a woman scream. When Brian checked out the situation, he found a man attempting to take a baby out of a woman’s stroller against her will.

“The man is saying things like, “How do you know this isn’t my baby? Why are you helping her? This could be my baby, you don’t know that,” he said.

Brian and two other men approached the man, who escalated the situation. Brian’s response was to put him in a “rear naked choke,” thus subduing him.

“Throughout the whole thing, it became clear that this man actually had mental issues,” Kemsley said. Brian also maintained his hold on the man in part because the crowd around them were becoming so irate.. “If I let go, who knows who what people would have done.”

“I think New Yorkers in general tune things out a lot, because we hear yelling and screaming all the time,” said Brian. “This one was different. This one you could tell there was a very intense altercation going on.”

While some might call Brian’s actions heroic, he’s quick to respond that he thinks he did what any human being should do.

“The bar for being a hero should not be this low. It should be a duty, a civic duty for all to do.” Kemsley said.

An onlooked managed to catch some footage of the event, which you can watch below:

The moral of this story is, ah…don’t…steal babies? Yeah, I guess. Don’t steal babies.

More importantly: kudos to Brian for doing the right thing. Maybe every person SHOULD help someone in a situation like this, but they don’t always. Brian did, and for that, we salute him.

***

Words by Chris Krovatin