Amazing video surveillance in Jerusalem on Sunday captured the moment the city’s mayor took down a Palestinian terrorist with his bodyguards.
The footage shows the suspect, a 19-year-old Palestinian, stab a 30-year-old ultra-Orthodox man before swinging at bystanders. Then, Mayor Nir Barkat, 55, and his bodyguards approach the suspect, quickly taking him down and neutralizing the threat.
“[W]hen I was on my way to the office for a meeting, while we were at the junction right next to City Hall, my driver and my team noticed something happening in the junction,” Barkat told reporters after the incident. “So, I got out of the car with my bodyguard, and we approached the scene and noticed a terrorist with a knife in his hand.”
“Without thinking, my bodyguard took out his weapon, and when he aimed at the terrorist, the terrorist dropped his knife and we immediately tackled him to the ground to make sure that he could not continue with the terror attack,” Barkat said, reports the Jerusalem Post.
“In our world, there's no such thing as hesitation – there's only yes or no," said Asaf Na’amani, the guard who drew his gun, reports Ynetnews.com.
Barkat’s courage and leadership can be attributed in part to the six years he spent in the IDF where he served as a paratrooper and company commander.
Check out the video below (the mayor is in the white shirt):
After hearing the mayor explain what happened in a press conference, which was held less than two hours after the episode, one attendee noted: “I guess that makes him Super Mayor,” the Jerusalem Post reports.
It does indeed.