Brave Boy Fights Robbers Using Stuffed Animal At GameStop [Watch]

Cops in Maryland released video of a 7-year-old boy with a stuffed toy who tried to fight off an armed robbery suspect at a GameStop this week. “He punched him,” the boy’s father told The Washington Post. “Two left hooks while holding the Yoshi doll.”

The May 20 hold-up at the GameStop store in Silver Spring, just outside Washington, netted the two robbers cash and personal property. Dressed in all black, hooded sweatshirts, black pants, gloves and masks, the gun-wielding suspects harmed no one during the heist.

Check out video of the robbery via the clip below.

The parents of the boy told The Post that they took their son to the store to shop for stuffed toys. As the boy searched the bins for a Yoshi doll, the robbers entered the store. The boy and his parents weren’t together as the robbery unfolded.

“It was a terrifying situation,” dad told the paper. “You just want to grab them and hold them tight to you and you want it to end, quickly.”

In a separate interview, the father told Fox 5 Washington that he didn’t know his son tried to fight back until after the robbery was over. Even after seeing the video, dad said he understood why his son was so brave in the moment.

“We didn’t completely understand why,” said the father. “Of course, we think our son is brave and a strong kid. But we didn’t exactly know why and when we saw the tape, we saw why. Because he saw somebody who was a stranger, who seemed most dangerous to him and he tried to defend himself. I think it was his natural instinct taking over there.”

Check out the clip below of the parents talking about the ordeal.

The Post reported that the father told the robbers, “I need my son!” while crouching on the floor as one of the masked suspects pointed a gun at him and his wife. The robbery occurred inside the GameStop store at 10100 Colesville Road just before 9 p.m. on Friday. The pair of robbers pointed their guns at two clerks and demanded cash before fleeing. The robbers are still at large, so the boy’s identity is being withheld. The father said he’s speaking to media about the ordeal because, in part, he wants to tell his son that the robbers have been caught.

“It’s important for me to be able to say to him, ‘They’re not going to do this to anyone else,'” he said.

According to a police report, the family dined out at a Japanese restaurant prior to hitting up GameStop to buy their son a “Yoshi,” a turtle-dinosaur that’s connected to Super Mario video games. The family went to the gaming store, where the boy picked up a Yoshi out of a toy bin, as his parents shopped for a gift to bring to a birthday party. Video shows the two gunmen entering the store and ordering the father and his wife to the floor. One assailant approached the boy, and the heroic Yoshi fan resisted the villain.

GameStop expecting new console announcements at E3 – CNET https://t.co/DrbTXWkSpQ

— technews (@technews6) May 27, 2016

As the boy attacked the suspect, the robber hauled him over to his parents and forced him on the floor. “I’m just grateful we were together, as a family, at that moment,” dad said. The ordeal was over within minutes, and while the father is proud of his little soldier, he said that his son understood the guns were real and the robbery could have ended tragically.

The GameStop manager gave the boy the Yoshi doll for free, which his father says he now carries around the house. “He feels like it’s being protected,” the father said.

The boy fought two robbers, whom police described as “black men in their 20s, both about 5 feet 6 inches tall and 170 pounds.” An anonymous tip line has been set up, and a $10,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the suspects’ arrest.

[Image via Shutterstock]