Never underestimate the righteous fury of a fighting furry — and never try to say that three times fast.
Video captured on the street near FurCon in San Jose, Calif., shows several people in animal costumes — commonly known as “furries” — intervening to restrain a man who was allegedly striking a woman in a domestic dispute.
The fuzzy-costumed crusaders came to the woman’s rescue Friday night, after hearing her screams from down the block outside the Marriott Hotel. The man and the woman were inside a car at the side of the road at the time, with the woman behind the wheel and the man in the passenger’s seat, the furries said.
“This guy was just walloping a lady,” Kin Z. Shiratsuki, who was one of the furries, told NBC News. “He had to have hit her 10 times.”
“We saw the passenger just waling on her,” said Steven Rodriguez, another furry from the group. Rodriguez told the San Jose Mercury News that he saw the man deliver a “full-on punch” to the woman.
The furries ganged up to open the door and haul the man out of the car.
“The girl driver was yelling for him to get out as he started trying to fight us off,” furry Robbie Ryans told CNN.
“I just couldn’t sit there and watch that,” Shiratsuki told NBC. “I’ve been a victim of abuse myself.”
Video posted by a witness on Twitter shows what happened next, as a humanoid tiger, a pink dinosaur and a handful of other costumed figures pinned the plainclothes man to the ground, despite his protests. A woman can be seen standing and shrieking nearby, while several other FurCon attendees stand around watching.
Participants and witnesses in the video can be seen wearing dog-shaped FurCon passes on lanyards.
A woman who called herself “Khord Kitty” said she was proud to help save another person in distress.
“It’s just a natural thing to want to help someone in need,” she told NBC.
“Even though we’re wearing animal costumes, we’ve got some humanity as well.”
Demetri Hardnett, 22, was arrested at the scene on suspicion of domestic violence, according to a police report obtained by CNN. The report mentions the heroes who helped with the arrest, but it does not describe the unusual paw patrol’s costumes.
Social media users applauded the furries for helping with the arrest. They also mocked the suspect for getting mobbed by fuzzy creatures in public.
“Your dignity is GONE when a man in a giant pink fursuit pulls you to the ground,” one person tweeted.
“His dignity was gone long before that,” added another.