Imagine a man walking his dog at the beach when a stranger starts yelling at him out of nowhere and tries to punch him. That’s what happened to James Hidalgo when he was at Crissy Field in San Francisco and encountered a shirtless stranger getting angry at him for seemingly no reason. He tried to deescalate the situation, but it quickly turned into a fight when the stranger started throwing fists. Unfortunately for the stranger, it turns out that Hidalgo is a Marine veteran and a martial arts expert with years of experience under his belt.
Hidalgo is the founder of a martial arts studio in San Francisco
On September 8 at around 12:30 p.m., Hidalgo was trying to walk his dog, Argis, along the San Francisco beach when a person he didn’t know began shouting at him and started a brawl, as seen in footage captured by local outlet KRON4. A reporter was near the scene for a different story, but then heard shouting coming from the fight and began recording.
Hidalgo explained what led up to the altercation. He said, “I saw this guy being loud; I didn’t pay no mind. I thought he was trying to get someone’s attention.”
He says the shirtless man approached him and allegedly said “Are you calling me a dog?” apparently because he was walking a dog. Confused, Hidalgo tried to defuse the situation.
“[I] just kind of put my hands up and was like ‘hey man ok’ and then he came in and tried to punch me,” he continued.
Footage of the fight starts with both men already wrestling with one another as Hidalgo pressed the stranger’s left arm across his chest. The man takes several swings at Hidalgo’s face, but he blocks them and knocks the stranger’s cap off his head.
As the dog barks in the background, Hidalgo then goes low to the ground and goes in for a single leg takedown, putting the stranger off balance as he picks him up off the sand. The man tries to regain his balance, but the martial arts expert uses his momentum to drive him backward and onto the ground.
A plume of sand rises as Hidalgo struggles with the man but eventually manages to place him in a side necklock, pinning him in place.
The suspect targeted “the wrong person,” Hidalgo says
He maintained the hold for several minutes as witnesses dialed 911 and officers from the United States Park Police (USPP) arrived on the scene. They proceeded to handcuff both men, but Hidalgo wasn’t bothered because he understood the process due to his background.
“I was in the United States Marine Corps,” he said. “So I understand that there’s protocol for all this, and you have to let the professionals deal with what they do.”
Hidalgo founded Infinite Martial Arts, a studio in the Marina District of San Francisco, in 2011, according to his biography on its website. It says that he was a professional athlete and served the US Marine Corps as a non-commissioned officer. More than that, Hidalgo holds a 4th degree black belt in Taekwondo and a purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and he has been an instructor for boxing, kickboxing, and Muay Thai.
According to USPP, witnesses of the fight told officers that the suspect, who has not been identified, physically assaulted Hidalgo.
The suspect was taken into custody by police, while Hidalgo was checked by paramedics and released near the scene. He plans on pressing charges against the suspect.
Despite being targeted for a fight, Hidalgo says he’s relieved that the stranger didn’t go after someone else.
“Imagine a nanny with her kid here. What is she going to do?” he said. “The guy was a built guy, and he knew that he could intimidate 90 percent of the people today. He just ran into the wrong person.”
