Photo: Miami-Dade Corrections
Newly released video footage shows the exact moment a would-be kidnapper was arrested after being fought off by a heroic father at a Miami Beach CVS earlier this year.
The police body camera video, which was obtained by several local news outlets on Wednesday (April 17), shows Nicolas Metternich Sternaman, 26, being ordered by an officer to "get on the floor" before being handcuffed. Sternaman is accused of violently grabbing the child before the boy's father immediately intervened, leading to a brief struggle between the two, which resulted in the suspect attempting to run away before being stopped by police.
"He grabbed him by the neck, if I'm not behind him, he would have killed him," the father said in Spanish to an officer in body camera footage showing Sternaman being arrested shortly after the incident took place on February 8.
Sternaman was booked on kidnapping and battery charges and held without bond. The body camera footage shows an officer describing the incident as the "strangest thing I ever heard."
"Don't even question him…we shook him good, right? Nothing on him? We shook him, you're sure, we patted him down really good? There was nothing on him, no IDs, nothing?" one officer asked another in relation to Sternaman's arrest.
The child's family told NBC Miami that they had just arrived in Florida from Cuba prior to the terrifying incident.