Brian Kemsley, guitarist of the now-defunct New England hardcore band Outbreak, and, more recently, NYC-based Muay Thai champion, stopped an attempted baby abduction in progress at NYC's Madison Square Park, NY Daily News reports. On November 9, Kemsley and his girlfriend were sitting in the park and heard a scream. When they went to see what was happening, they say they found a man trying to take a woman's baby out of his stroller, and two other men confronting him.

"[The alleged attacker] 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,'" Kemsley said to the Daily News.

The man began to get violent, Kemsley said, so he put him in a "rear naked choke" and "seatbelt hold" to restrain him until help came. "Throughout the whole thing, it became clear that this man actually had mental issues," Kemsley told the Daily News. He also wanted to protect the alleged attacker from the wrath of the gathering crowd. "If I let go, who knows who what people would have done," he continued.

"I think New Yorkers in general tune things out a lot," Kemsley went on to the Daily News, "because we hear yelling and screaming all the time. This one was different. This one you could tell there was a very intense altercation going on."

He emphasized that his actions weren't heroics, however, saying, "the bar for being a hero should not be this low. It should be a duty, a civic duty for all to do."

Bystander video, which Kemsely shared on Facebook, captured the incident, and you can watch it below. Sharing it, he wrote:

I heard a woman screaming while sitting on a park bench. This man tried to take a baby in a stroller from her. A couple people tried to stop him, he wouldn’t let go of the stroller, and things escalated pretty quick. Here’s the thing, I don’t enjoy jujitsu. I don’t think training is fun at all. But I have a lot of respect for it as it is absolutely essential in a street fight, or for self defense. This is coming from a Muay Thai fighter that’s very comfortable on my feet. It is way more effective to be able to control someone’s movements and limbs than it is to break your hand swinging, and hurting the them as well. Cops took 30 minutes to show up, I had to hold him down for over 15 mins before park security even came around to cuff him. You can’t rely on cops, you can’t rely on just blasting people with a gun, go train, go learn this. The limited jujitsu I learned over 6 years ago allowed me to control a strong raging full grown man like he was a baby. Thanks for my jits coach Chad Andrew Vaźquez for the refresher course last year.

Play by play – Brought him down w a rear naked choked. Let it go and transitioned to a seatbelt. Got 2nd hook in. Laid him flat on my left side. At this point his weight had been pinned on my left leg for 10 minutes, my leg was going numb so I needed to transition to my right side. We saw cops and waved them down. They stopped, looked, and drove off. The man tried to head butt me backwards twice. After another 5 mins park security arrive and i asked them for cuffs. A man in the crowd let’s them know I was getting tired as I’ve been holding him for over 15 mins. I ask them to cuff the left hand first where I had good control, then rolled him over and cuffed the right hand. I’m then able to stand back him, put on my shoes, and get to Evolution Muay Thai in time for my training. The man got taken into a psych ward. The woman returned to the scene after running off initially to thank everyone. I might have Covid now.

In a second post, Kemsley wrote that his good deed led to his Instagram account getting disabled:

Lol. My Instagram account has been “permanently disabled” because after news networks ran the “kidnapping” story, a bunch of people went onto my gram and evidently reported all my anti trump / pro BLM / anti racist posts I’ve made. Conservatives were about to go on my page and thank me for being a good citizen and got triggered when they saw me in a “make racists afraid again hat” ‍♂️also… can anyone help me get back to my account? Thanks.

Before playing guitar in Outbreak, who disbanded in 2011 after releasing a couple LPs on Think Fast! and Bridge 9, Kemsley started straight edge band Living in Ruins in Seattle, which was followed by Gravemaker.