MIAMI (WSVN) - A retired Miami-Dade firefighter is recounting his story after he caught a thief who stole his chain while on a trip to Spain.
Speaking exclusively with 7News on Friday, former firefighter and mixed martial arts fighter John Kelley said that he was vacationing in Barcelona with his wife when he felt his chain being snatched by a thief.
Kelley said he put his skills to work and sprinted to take down the thief.
“Whether it’s fire, whether it’s people, whether it’s oppression, tyranny, I’m always gonna stand up for my beliefs and for people weaker than me,” said Kelley.
He said that he felt his chain leaving his neck as he walked back to his hotel.
“And suddenly I felt something jerk off my neck, and I immediately thought in my mind, ‘I just got my chain snatched,'” he said.
Kelley said he went into fight mode and ran after the subject.
“After chasing him for 30, 40 seconds, I caught up to him, I subdued him, and I put him on the ground,” he said.
While doing all of this, all he wanted was his jewelry back.
“I think my instinct to go after him was, I was so offended that he would rip my chain off me and think that it was OK that he could just take my stuff and go,” he said.
As he restrained the thief, Kelley said, he was surrounded by people speaking in a foreign language and thought that catching a thief in a foreign country might not be a good idea.
“What I realized is that I was surrounded by people that I didn’t know, in a place that I had never been before,” he said.
This is why, he said, that despite what he was able to do to the thief, he had second thoughts and thought about what he should do instead.
“There was a minute there that I looked at him, and I looked into his eyes, and I realized that he was just another human like me, and if he was resorting to stealing from me, then he probably had a worse life than I had,” he said.
It was a lesson for both the thief and Kelley, whose fight-or-flight instincts kicked in and he used both. Ultimately, he let the thief go.
“Whatever the universe does with him, I did my job. I chased him down. I let him know that he can’t do that. I did not get my property back,” said Kelley.
Kelley said being an MMA fighter wore him down, and that is when he decided to open Live Free, a gym on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami.
“Now I’m starting to realize that not every place is as safe as America,” he said.
Kelley said he regrets leaving his wife alone in the street as he chased the guy.
Also, a ring belonging to his late mother was attached to the chain that got lost. Kelley said she never got to visit Spain, and even though he left that piece of jewelry behind, he feels like a piece of his mother was left behind in Spain, too.
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