HANDS OFF MY BABY!
Mom, granny stop crazed kid-snatcher in J train nightmare
A QUEENS mom who fought off a deranged man trying to snatch her baby daughter on the subway said Monday she’ll never take a train without her husband again.
Yubarbina Peña, 22, said a mentally ill man tried to abduct her 4-month-old girl — but she and her mother-in-law staved the creep off until a good Samaritan stepped in and pinned him to a seat until cops arrived.
The dramatic tug of war unfolded aboard a J train in East New York, Brooklyn, about 11 p.m. on Sunday.
That’s when Rafael Martinez, 30, boarded at Alabama Ave. and sat near Peña and her infant daughter, Barbie Montero.
Peña was also traveling with her 3-year-old niece, Abrianny, and her mother-in-law, Maria Carpio, 46.
“He sat next to us and he started talking — things that we didn’t understand even though he was speaking Spanish,” said Peña, who moved to New York from the Dominican Republic six years ago.
“He wasn’t clear, he was mumbling,” the mom said.
“When he grabbed the baby, he said, ‘I want a baby, I don’t have a baby,’ ” Peña told the Daily News at her East Elmhurst home.
Martinez at first had fixated on Abrianny, she said. But then his attention abruptly switched to the tiny girl resting in her stroller.
Martinez started asking questions — and then he grabbed Barbie, Peña recounted.
“I’m so thankful for (my mother-in-law) because she was the one who was trying to push the guy. She was fighting to take the baby,” Peña said.
Carpio and Martinez tussled over Barbie, as the baby sat in a black stroller decorated with pink flowers, while Peña tried to force the crazed man to release the carrier.
“Let me go!” Martinez screamed in Spanish, according to police. “I want the baby!”
Peña said the J train hadn’t yet left the station, where it was held for a few moments. But it seemed like forever — until a good Samaritan jumped up and came to their aid, she said.
“It was very scary at the time,” Peña said Monday night as she cradled her daughter, who wore a gray onesie with white polka dots and a pink bib that said “Love My Grandma” on it.
“I didn’t know what to do — I’m so grateful for my mother-inlaw and the man who helped,” she said.
Martinez has 30 previous arrests — including busts for marijuana possession, assault and robbery — and he is on probation until 2018 for a Bronx conviction involving endangering the welfare of a child, a 12-year-old family member, sources said.
He’s tried to kill himself twice, sources said, and on Feb. 28, he told police he had seen God.
He was arraigned Monday on charges that included menacing, harassment and endangering the welfare of a child. He was held on $5,000 bail.