A Marine veteran is being called a hero after he chased down and held a rape suspect at gunpoint outside a Georgia Kroger, according to a video.
The suspect was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in the grocery store’s bathroom in Savannah, Georgia, on April 27, WSAV reported.
Shoppers at the Savannah Kroger heard a woman screaming from the bathroom that she was sexually assaulted. A man allegedly attempted to flee the scene by running out of the bathroom.
That is when Damian Austin, a Marine veteran, stepped into action.
“It made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck because it wasn’t a normal yell,” Austin recalled, according to KFOR.
A video showed Austin chasing the man behind an Ace Hardware store, where he held him at gunpoint.
“I told him to put his hands in the air. He complied and put them up,” Austin recalled. “I told him to get on the ground, and he tried to say something, and I said, ‘Don’t say a word.'”
Another bystander entered the scene to help, bringing zip ties to him that she purchased from the store.
Police eventually took the suspect into custody and identified him as Gregory Hawthorne, 25.
Austin’s bravery did not go unnoticed. The manager of the Ace Hardware store gave him a $100 gift card for his efforts.
Austin, meanwhile, said he was just trying to keep his neighborhood safe.
“I immediately thought, ‘my wife shops here, I have friends whose wives shop here, my son works here,'” said Austin. “So it was just about not letting this person get away after he did what he did.”
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