A 19-year-old St. Louis man was arrested and charged with assaulting three people last Sunday after a “rampage” in the Central West End that included breaking the arms of an 82-year-old woman and attempting to abduct a baby from its mother, KMOV reported.
A surveillance camera captured the moment Anthony McGee, 19, tried to grab the baby from its mother in a crosswalk just before 9:00 a.m. last Sunday.
The footage shows a family of three crossing at the designated crosswalk near the First Watch restaurant when a man in a gray hoodie walking beside them suddenly grabs the infant.
The mother is seen struggling to keep hold of the child as the father fights off the suspect, chasing him away.
According to St. Louis Police, just moments before that incident occurred, McGee struck another woman with a glass bottle. When bystanders attempted to refrain him, McGee managed to break away and run off. It was then that he attempted to take the child, police said.
After fleeing from the family of three, McGee then attacked an 82-year-old woman, breaking both of her arms.
Several witnesses called 911, including one who saw McGee restraining the 82-year-old woman. When police arrived, McGee attempted to flee but was taken into custody.
McGee faces multiple charges for the rampage, which police described as a series of “random attacks,” including kidnapping, endangering the welfare of a child, resisting arrest, armed criminal actions, and multiple assault charges.
Jim Whyte from the Central West End Neighborhood Security Initiative said he is hopeful that the group’s multiple surveillance cameras that caught several parts of McGee’s rampage will keep him behind bars.
According to Whyte, McGee is well-known by his group’s homeless outreach team who has engaged with him on multiple occasions to try and connect him with services “because he appears to be homeless.”
