Smaller Guy Sees Giant Robbing Store, Lays Him Out with Single Punch
A man being described as a “good Samaritan” was able to stop a massive “giant” of a man robbing groceries from a store with one, well-placed punch, KCAL-TV reported.
According to police, Jose Prado was followed from a Stater Bros. supermarket in Santa Ana, California, with a cartload of items he hadn’t paid for.
When employees trailed him into the parking lot, however, he turned on them in a massive way.
Video shows Prado, who weighs close to 400 pounds, threatening the employees as he loaded the groceries from the cart into his Toyota pickup in the parking lot.
As over half a dozen employees and onlookers confronted Prado, he threatened to charge at various individuals.
After he seemed to grab one employee and pin him against the car, a much smaller onlooker was able to stop Prado with a hit to the face.
WARNING: This video contains threatening and violent acts that may disturb some viewers.
The good Samaritan ran off as Prado fell to the ground — no doubt stunned that he had just been felled by someone so much smaller. However, he was eventually able to recover enough to get into the truck and escape along with a female suspect.
The incident occurred on June 17 and Prado was able to escape the law for over two months. But according to KCAL, an employee managed to snap a picture of his license plate, so authorities had a clue about the big man’s identity.
On Wednesday, Prado was booked and held on $50,000 bail, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department reported according to KTLA-TV.
KABC-TV reported he was being considered a robbery suspect.
Police are still looking for the guy who was able to take Prado out as a possible witness.
Aside from actually demonstrating the kind of peril that the “minor crimes” we hear about on the news every night really put human beings in, there are a few other takeaways from the Prado incident.
The first, sadly, is that we live in a world where aggressive use of force is often what governs how incidents end. When people get angry over that use of force, whether by police or private citizens, it helps to remember this simple fact.
The second is that we need to be ready for when and if this happens to us. Bad things can happen at any place at any time. This man, thankfully, was ready for the kind of menace that Prado was going to bring. And the bystander wasn’t looking for a violent confrontation, either — he just did what was necessary to neutralize a bully and then moved on. That’s what you’re supposed to do.
Third, and this is important: It’s not always the wisest idea to interfere in a crime. You have to decide when and if it’s worth it, or if police should be the ones applying that aggressive use of force.
In this case, however, Prado was clearly a threat to employees who had confronted him. The onlooker saw an opportunity and got in a right hook that made sure that even if Prado got away with his ill-gotten goods, he didn’t injure any of the Stater Bros. workers who were merely doing their job.
In the end, the onlooker gets major props for courage. This could have ended a lot worse were it not for him.
And as for Prado, unless he can come up with bail, at least he won’t have to worry about buying groceries for a while.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
