Dad decks man who attempts to kidnap daughter

A quick-thinking father decked a man who was allegedly attempting to kidnap his 3-year-old daughter.

It happened on Saturday in a town northeast of Sacramento, California.

The girl had been playing at the park while her mother and the mother’s boyfriend were walking their dog nearby.

A suspect identified by police as Yonel Hernandez-Velasco, 26, was allegedly in the park acting strangely around 7 p.m.

A group of boys playing basketball said Hernandez-Velasco had twice asked them if he could buy their basketball, and told them he could handcuff one of them and drag them into the pond. He showed them a set of handcuffs.

After the boys told him to go away, Hernandez Velasco wandered up to the young girl, took her hand and began “skipping through the grass.”

The boyfriend confronted the suspect who started acting “aggressively,” the Placer County Sheriff’s Office said. The mother then called the girl’s father who lived at an apartment across the street.

When the father asked Hernandez Velasco what he was doing, police say that Hernandez-Velasco pulled the handcuffs from his pocket and wrapped them around his hand like brass knuckles. He charged toward the father, who punched him in the face. He came back at the father again, and he was again punched in the face.

Hernandez Velasco fell to the ground and remained there until deputies and medical aid arrived.  He was transported to the hospital and then taken to jail on kidnapping, assault and other charges.

His bond was set at $1.2 million.  It was unclear if he had a lawyer.