The masked man tried to abduct the 6-year-old child from his father's arms in broad daylight.

The horrifying incident occurred around 3:30 PM on Saturday in the Brooklyn area of New York, just a few blocks from the home of a six-year-old child.

At the time of the incident, the young child was on his way to a Shabbat gathering with his father on Kingston Avenue in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood, which is heavily populated by the Hasidic Jewish community.

Security camera footage shows a man wearing a black ski mask attempting to lift the child off the ground. The father is seen pulling his son close and confronting the man.

Police later arrested a suspect named Stephen Sowe, 28. Sowe was charged with attempted kidnapping, harassment, and endangering the welfare of a child at 1:40 AM on Sunday morning. It was determined that the suspect was a neighbor of the child he attempted to abduct.

The child's mother, Balya, said, "When my children came home, they said, 'Mom, someone tried to catch me!' and I was horrified." She noted that they recognized Sowe and had never had any issues with him before. "He always held the door, he was always polite," she added.

According to neighbors, it was learned that Sowe had a bad day on the day of the incident. The mother stated that she did not believe the attack was an antisemitic hate crime, but acknowledged that the Jewish community has been on edge since the Hamas attacks on October 7.

"When living in New York, you don't expect someone to attack a six-year-old child and try to separate him from his family," the mother said, adding that her son would receive therapy and that the family hoped for justice in court.

The child's father, Zalman, mentioned that the man had attacked others on the same day. "I don't want to think of this as a hate crime because with everything happening in Israel and around the world, I don't want my son to feel that this is a hate crime. The moment children start to feel this is a hate crime, they will be afraid to go anywhere. I just want them to think that the man is simply not normal," he said.