Stranger tries to steal baby out of mom’s arms while crossing street, dad fights him off
ST. LOUIS (KMOV/Gray News) – Scary surveillance video from a St. Louis neighborhood shows a man attempting to snatch a baby from a mother’s arms in a crosswalk.
The reported incident happened in the Central West End neighborhood just before 9 a.m. Sunday.
The video shows a family of three crossing the street at a designated crosswalk outside of a First Watch restaurant. The mother is carrying her 11-month-old baby, and the father walks beside them.
A man in a gray hoodie begins to cross the sidewalk alongside the family, and then he suddenly grabs the child.
The woman clutches the child tightly, and the father manages to fight off the suspect and chases him out of frame.
St. Louis police later identified the suspect as 19-year-old Anthony McGee.
Police said just moments before this incident, McGee hit another woman with a glass bottle. Bystanders tried to stop McGee from running off, but he managed to break away. That’s when he then tried to snatch the child, police said.
Then, police said, McGee’s rampage continued as he attacked an 82-year-old woman down the street, breaking both of her arms.
Several witnesses called 911 to try to stop him. One witness said she saw McGee attack the 82-year-old.
“I heard someone screaming, a woman screaming,” said a woman who lives at the Hawthorne Apartments nearby. “When I looked out the window, I saw the woman, and she was held and restrained by a man.”
The witness said when police arrived, McGee got up and ran, but he was taken into custody.
Police called McGee’s rampage “random attacks.”
McGee is facing numerous charges for the attacks, including multiple assault charges, kidnapping, endangering the welfare of a child, armed criminal action, and resisting arrest.
Jim Whyte is the head of the Central West End Neighborhood Security Initiative. Their surveillance cameras captured several parts of the attacks, and he’s hopeful the footage will help keep McGee locked up. It’s not their first dealing with him in the neighborhood.
“We had some brief dealings with him on a previous incident,” Whyte said. “Our homeless outreach team has engaged this young man on a number of occasions trying to get him services because he appears to be homeless.”
Just two weeks ago, police in Clayton, a neighboring area, arrested McGee after they said he punched a victim who was walking down the street.
In the Clayton case, McGee was charged with a misdemeanor and released. After the Central West End attacks, he is now being held without bond.
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