Baby in subway 'snatch'
Mom & grandma fight off terrifying kidnap bid
An emotionally disturbed parolee tried kidnap a 4month-old baby on Brooklyn subway car — but was fought off by the frantic mother, grandmother and a good Samaritan, authorities said.
Rafael Martinez, 30, approached the family aboard a J train near the Alabama Avenue station in Cypress Hills at around 11 p.m. Sunday, cops said.
The mom, Ubarbina Peña, 21, was with her mother-in-law, Carpio Peña, 42, her 3-yearold niece and 4-month-old daughter when Martinez inquired about the toddler.
Martinez, a gang member on probation, then plopped himself down on the seat too close to the 3-year-old, prompting the women to shoo him away.
Martinez became agitated and allegedly snatched the portable car seat in which the baby, Barbie Montero, was sitting.
He took off for the door with the seat in his hands as the train entered the station, authorities said.
“Let me go! I want the baby,” Martinez yelled in Spanish, according to police sources.
But the mom and grandmother desperately held on to the seat, fighting Martinez in a tug of war that jerked the baby back and forth.
“It was very scary,” Ubarbina Peña told The Post.
During the struggle, another straphanger who saw what was happening rushed over. She grabbed Martinez and pinned him to the train seat, helping the women gain control of the baby.
That good Samaritan then held Martinez down until police officers arrived a short time later and arrested him, sources said.
Peña said she was glad that her mother-in-law was there to help fight of the ex-con.
“I’m so grateful for her,” Peña said. “She was the one who was trying to push the guy. She was fighting to take the baby”
Martinez was charged with attempted kidnapping and acting in a manner injurious to a child and possession of a controlled substance for some cocaine he was carrying in his wallet, police said.
He has more than 20 prior arrests, including several for drug possession, assault and robbery, the sources said.
He is also a P-Stone Bloods gang member who is on probation until 2018, police sources said.
Nobody answered the door at his family’s basement apartment in East New York.