Dad: Man touched self in front of boy, 5

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - A father chased down a man on Tuesday night after he said the man was touching himself in front of a 5-year-old boy.

The incident happened in the restroom of a northwest side grocery store. The father, Marlin Ochoa, told 24-Hour News 8 he left his 5-year-old son in the main area of the restroom while he went into a stall at the Meijer Grocery Store on West Pike Plaza Road.

Ochoa spoke in Spanish, through a translator. “To make sure he would stay where I told him to stay, I kept on talking to him,” said Ochoa.

Suddenly, he said he couldn’t hear his son anymore over a hand dryer that was turned on. He said he rushed out of the stall.

“I noticed this black male has his genitals in his hands, and he’s showing them to my son,” said Ochoa. “I asked him ‘What the heck are you doing?’ and I grabbed him.”

But he says the man, identified later by police as 30-year-old Curtis Dwayne Smith, ran away from him.

“So I ran after him and I grab him, and I yell at the attendant people that were at the door, I said, call the police, and I said it in English,” said Ochoa.

He said no one called 911 when he asked them to, so he did.

“I told this guy, I put my hands up, I told him ‘Don’t move,’ I reach for my phone, and I, I dial 911,” he added.

Ochoa spoke through a translator during the 911 call as well. He told the operator, “I have him here with me. He tried to run and we almost made a big problem here at the entrance of the store.”

He says he grabbed Smith, so he wouldn't do the same thing to someone else's child.

“I thought, I want to kill this man. This is not a thing, you don’t do that to a child, five years old child,” he said.

And now, this father has advice to every father out there.

“My advice to every father, Spanish, American, or any other race. Be careful with your children,” Ochoa said. “It can happen in a split second.”

Officers arrested Smith on a preliminary charge of vicarious sexual gratification.