The man works for a delivery company and incapacitated the attacker who stabbed several people by hitting him with his motorcycle helmet.
The Brazilian delivery man described as a “hero” for helping subdue a knife-wielding attacker suspected of attacking children outside an Irish school in Dublin on Thursday told AFP on Saturday he had behave “like any other parent.”
A 5-year-old girl was seriously injured and remains in hospital after the knife attack. It was the origin of the worst night of unrest in the Irish capital in almost twenty years, for which authorities blamed far-right agitators.
They claimed that rumors circulating on social networks that the stabbings were carried out by an “illegal immigrant” were at the origin of this violence, in which vehicles were burned, stores were looted and police officers were attacked.
“True Irish Heroes”
Caio Benicio, who works for takeaway food delivery app Deliveroo, used his motorcycle helmet to hit the suspect who was attacking a little girl “with all his might.” The attacker was arrested on site.
The intervention of Caio Benicio and other passers-by was warmly welcomed by Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, calling them “true Irish heroes”.
The 43-year-old Brazilian, father of a 12-year-old boy and a 19-year-old girl, told AFP that he doesn’t really consider himself a “hero.”
“I have two children and I think any parent would have done the same thing,” he said.
However, Caio Benicio was moved when many Irish people and his children congratulated him on his courage: “It’s nice to make them proud.”
A brave young Frenchman
A 17-year-old French boy, an apprentice chef in Dublin, also helped disarm the attacker. He sustained minor injuries to his hand and face and received a call on Friday from French President Emmanuel Macron congratulating him on his bravery.
Caio Benicio says the riots following the knife attack, which involved almost 500 people and illustrated rising anti-immigrant sentiment in Ireland, “make no sense”.
“They were targeting immigrants, I’m an immigrant myself and I’m the one who helped,” he commented. “I think it’s a small group of people who don’t even know what they’re doing, who they’re fighting for,” the Brazilian added.