He had been coming into his family’s dojo to practice Tae Kwon Do under his father, a former Korean marine and grand master, from age 4, but when Simon An arrived there one late June afternoon, he was ripped from his routine by a terrified scream.
Then came two screams. The second carried an urgency that roused Mr. Simon An, a 5th-degree black belt, from mindlessly scrolling on his phone, and he sprang into action.
“The second scream—yeah, we knew it was a cry for help,” he told the station.
However he said his father led the charge.
The grand master burst into the store followed closely by his family where he found the suspect, a 19-year-old male, allegedly on top of the woman and sexually assaulting her, and immediately took him to the floor, pinning him down.
“I saw a man on top of a woman, and the woman is on the ground,” Mr. Simon An said afterward.
The martial arts grand master “just kept him in the corner, he just kept pushing down,” the eldest An son said, adding that the suspect “was clawing his way out—he bit my dad.”
His sister, Hannah An, 22, also a 5th-degree black belt, described the action as “automatic self-defense, automatic Tae Kwon Do style.”
She had entered the store second after her dad and assisted by helping the victim out of the establishment into the dojo alongside her mother, Hong An, 55—“making sure that she’s okay because she needed that after that experience,” Ms. Hannah An said.
Meanwhile her brother Christian An, 18, a 5th-degree black belt like his siblings, helped barricade the door so the suspect could not escape before authorities arrived.
Harris County Sheriff deputies soon showed up and found the suspect, identified as Alex Robinson, still pinned to the floor before taking him into custody.
“By utilizing their training and discipline, they managed to stop the assault and hold him,” the sheriff wrote on Facebook. “Deputies obtained charges for attempted sexual assault and unlawful detention on behalf of the survivor and assault on behalf of the instructors.”
After all the excitement Grand Master An, a member of the World Tae Kwon Do Federation, seemed unruffled and full of satisfaction. He told the station, “Of course, I’m very proud of my family.”
When asked whether she considered her family heroes Ms. Hannah An, a kinesiology graduate from the University of Houston, maintained a humble tone: “I think everybody is calling us that, but still I think anybody can do it.”
