Frightening video captured a Florida father bravely fighting off a creep who attempted to abduct their young child in broad daylight inside a Miami Beach pharmacy on Thursday.
The suspected kidnapper, identified as Nicolas Sternaman, had walked into the CVS on Collins Ave at around 11:55 a.m., just as the 4-year-old boy and his parents were exiting the building.
As the boy’s mother walked out the door, Sternaman, 26, hunched over and allegedly grabbed the child by the neck as he lifted the boy and attempted to flee the store, according to WPLG.
The quick-thinking dad instantaneously grabbed Sternaman while the woman pulled her child out of the alleged kidnapper’s clutches, store surveillance video obtained by the outlet captured.
The boy had fallen to the ground as his father wrestled with Sternaman for several seconds, at one point ripping the creep’s black jacket off.
The child’s mother picked the boy off the ground as the father slammed the creep into the store’s glass door.
A crowd of bystanders began to form, the enraged father pulled back his arm with a closed fist before he seemingly exchanged words with Sternaman, who walked out the door.
“Everyone was just shocked because it was so quick and it was so fast. The guy just came out of nowhere,” witness Zachary Jefferson told CBS Miami.
Sternaman then ran from the store but was chased by the boy’s father and another shopper.
Miami Beach Police arrested Sternaman three blocks from the store, according to Local10.
The child was left visibly shaking and would not let go of his mother’s grasp in fear, according to CBS Miami, citing a police report.
Sternaman was charged with kidnapping a child under 13, aggravated assault and battery, jail records show.
He is being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
Sternaman had recently been arrested on a petit theft charge, dating back to early January, according to court record viewed by The Post.
Last month, an 11-year-old Arizona girl narrowly escaped a suspected kidnapping as she walked to school, shocking surveillance video captured.
The girl was making her way to Sunset Elementary School in Glendale around 8 a.m. on Jan. 26 when the suspect, identified as Joseph Leroy Ruiz, pulled his car next to the sidewalk and started his chase.
But the 5th-grader noticed the man following her and began running and screaming for “help.”
Police said the suspected kidnapper chased after her for a short distance before he was scared off and returned to his car to drive away.
