An incredibly brave army veteran leaped into action to stop an alleged carjacking from taking place at a Starbucks in Florida.
Shane Spicer, 37, has been praised by the police for an ‘outstanding job’ and his commendable ‘heroic actions.’
The army vet - along with another person - helped police arrested a career criminal who allegedly robbed a 7-Eleven convenience store, broke into a woman’s home, stole their car before crashing it and attempting to carjack a pregnant woman at a Starbucks in Ocala, Florida on Tuesday (November 7).
Bodycam footage from the Ocala Police Department shows officers arriving at the Starbucks after spotting the stolen vehicle at the intersection of Pine Avenue and Silver Springs Blvd.
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Police have since identified the arrested man as 39-year-old Michael Prouty.
Spicer, who did 2004 and 2005 tours in Iraq with the US army, explained what happened moments before he came to the woman's rescue.
“We had literally only been awake like 25 minutes,” he said to 352 Today.
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“Sitting in line and I just kind of noticed this dude sprinting up, by the look of him he was a little out of place at 11 A.M. sprinting up downtown Ocala.
“He ran up to the woman’s door and from that point I already knew bad things were about to happen.
“I was in the passenger seat and was just kind of watching, I jumped out and ran into the passenger side of [her] vehicle.
"At that point I was already locked in in my pursuit of it."
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Spicer also ran after Prouty and held him against a wall until police caught him.
“I didn’t much care if anyone was helping or not because I was going to get this dude. I ran him down and he went to jump the fence and I pulled him back and then got him against the wall." he said.
“About that time, the two Sergent's from OPD come around the corner and they were on it.”
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Once Prouty was in custody, he and his girlfriend, who was with him at the time, checked up on the woman before driving off.
He also said he later discovered that the woman in the car was six months pregnant.
Explaining why he jumped into the situation, he chalked it up to 'old instinct to help' due to his time in the military.
“I wouldn’t have put myself in it if I didn’t feel I was going to be alright." he said.
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Adding: "I just hope someone would do the same thing for my family."
UNILAD has contacted the Ocala Police Department for comment.
Gerrard Kaonga