Mans Tries to Pick a Fight with a Dog Walker. Unfortunately, He Picked a Former Marine and Martial Arts Instructor
A man walking his dog at San Francisco’s Crissy Field said a stranger approached him Tuesday afternoon and tried to punch him, turning an ordinary trip to the beach into a confrontation on the sand. A KRON4 crew happened to be at the beach on another assignment and recorded part of what followed.
James Hidalgo said he got the other man to the ground and held him there while witnesses called 911. United States Park Police eventually arrived, handcuffed both men while sorting out what had happened, and Hidalgo was released after paramedics checked him. The other man remained handcuffed and was taken away by police.
Hidalgo had considerably more experience with physical confrontation than his dog-walking appearance might suggest. He is the founder of Infinite Martial Arts in San Francisco, and the studio says he trained in Taekwondo while serving as a non-commissioned officer in the U.S. Marine Corps and has more than two decades of martial-arts and teaching experience.
That background became especially relevant once Hidalgo described how the encounter started. He said the other man approached while talking loudly, became fixated on Hidalgo’s dog, Argis, and accused Hidalgo of insulting him before things turned physical.
Wrong Person
Embedded media follows; please allow a moment to load.
Hidalgo recalled the stranger asking, “Are you calling me a dog?” He told KRON4 that he tried to defuse the situation because he did not know what the man was talking about.
According to Hidalgo’s account, the man then tried to punch him. Hidalgo brought him to the ground and kept him pinned as the encounter drew witnesses and a 911 response. The KRON4 crew had begun recording after hearing yelling near the water and seeing the two men grappling on the beach.
Once Park Police arrived, Hidalgo said he understood that the physical part was over and it was time for the officers to handle the situation. He was checked by paramedics at the scene before being allowed to leave.
Long Résumé
The biography on Infinite Martial Arts adds considerably more detail to Hidalgo’s background. He founded the school in 2011 and holds a fourth-degree black belt in Taekwondo and a purple belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He is also an experienced instructor in boxing, kickboxing, and Muay Thai.
That independently verifies one of the details attracting the most attention around the footage: the man who ended up controlling the encounter was not merely described by a news outlet as someone with martial-arts experience. Teaching it has been his profession for years.
Hidalgo told KRON4 he was relieved the confrontation involved him rather than somebody less capable of defending themselves. His assessment of the man who approached him was considerably shorter.
He had “run into the wrong person.”
