The masked stranger caught on video trying to rip a 6-year-old Hasidic boy out of his dad’s arms in Brooklyn over the weekend was busted for the broad-daylight terror, cops said.
Stephan Stowe, 28, a gangbanger with 33 prior arrests, was picked up early Sunday and charged with attempted kidnapping — several hours after he tried to yank the young boy away from his dad in Crown Heights, authorities and sources said.
The boy’s father was holding hands with his two sons and walking on Kingston Avenue near Empire Boulevard when the menace approached the family and snatched the boy around 3:30 p.m. Saturday, surveillance footage shows.
The lanky alleged kidnapper scooped the child into the air before the boy’s dad swiftly pulled him out of the maniac’s arms.
The quick-acting dad then punched the would-be abductor in the stomach.
A representative for Shomrim, a volunteer neighborhood patrol serving NYC’s Jewish community, said no words were exchanged between the attacker and his victims during the incident.
It is unclear why the man targeted the child.
Stowe — who was also charged with acting in a manner injurious to a child and harassment — was ordered held without bail in his Monday evening arraignment, city Department of Correction records show.
He is a member of the G-Stone Crips gang, sources said.
Stowe’s lengthy rap sheet includes two open arrests in Brooklyn — including one from this past August for strangling his girlfriend during a heated feud, according to a criminal complaint.
The couple had gotten into an argument over Stowe’s cell phone when he became “verbally and physically aggressive,” the court doc reveals.
The woman asked her violent beau to leave, but he refused, so she threw his belongings outside, the complaint said.
Stowe then kicked through the victim’s door, strangled her on top of her dresser and tried to lock her in the room – damaging a TV on the dresser during the skirmish, according to the court doc.
Prosecutors slapped him with a top charge of third-degree assault – a misdemeanor – and an assortment of misdemeanors and violations for criminal mischief, criminal trespass, and harassment.
He was released on his own recognizance during his arraignment, records show.
Stowe was also busted in April of 2023 for possession of two pistols, a rifle, multiple rounds of ammunition, drugs, a credit card skimmer and a police radio in his apartment, according to a criminal complaint.
He was ordered held on $20,000 bail or $200,000 bond in that case.
It was not immediately clear how or when he posted bail.
He was also nabbed for criminal possession of a weapon in 2019, sources said.
Twenty-five of his prior arrests are sealed, sources said.
