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A family of Taekwondo instructors are being hailed heroes after they used years of martial arts training to save a young woman from being sexually assaulted near their studio in Texas.
When the An family heard the loud screams coming from the Cricket phone store next to their family-owned Yong-in Taekwondo dojo in Katy, Texas, they jumped into action and rushed to help.
Inside the closed store, they reportedly witnessed a man on top of a young woman as she attempted to fend him off, Simon An told NBC Los Angeles.
The family of five, who each have a fourth-degree black belt, intervened and broke up the attack. An said it was his father Hong, a taekwondo grand master, who yanked the attacker down by his shirt and pinned him to the ground.
“It just happened so sudden,” An said.
“It was all self-defense. The intruder was trying to run away — scratching, biting, anything he could do.”
His sister Hannah rushed the victim out of the room while An, his father and brother held him down until law enforcement arrived.
“My dad is strong. He expected us to protect him,” An said. “He had a lot of trust in us.”
The Harris County Sheriff’s Department said it was the An family’s quick action and skills that saved the woman from an attempted sexual assault.
“By utilizing their training and discipline, they managed to stop the assault and hold him,” Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said on X, formerly Twitter.
“Thank you to the Yong-In dojo for your quick action in protecting others.”
Authorities identified the suspect as 19-year-old Alex Robinson and he was arrested at the scene.
Robinson has been charged with attempted sexual assault in Cypress, Texas, according to the Harris County Sheriff’s Department. At an overnight court appearance, Robinson’s bond was set at $100,000 and a magistrate’s order of protection was requested.
Robinson is also facing charges of unlawful detention and assault after an investigation revealed that he had scratched and bit one of the instructors during the struggle.
