Authorities in New York detained Moise Morancy, a 21-year-old rapper and activist, after he intervened when a drunken man sexually harassed a teenage girl on a bus.

As reported by TheGrio, Morancy was travelling on the bus back from a recording session when the incident took place. He observed 36-year-old Pablo Levano making unwanted sexual advances and touching a young female passenger. Stepping in, Morancy approached Levano who then hit him, so he struck him in self-defence. When the police arrived at the scene both Levano and Morancy were detained despite his attempts to explain and several witness accounts.

Writing on his Facebook, Morancy detailed the incident:

“So I’m on my way home from the studio finalizing my debut mixtape “Chronicles of a Ghetto Rose” & I’m sitting at the back of the bus when this drunk guy gets on, saying all types of sexual shit to this little girl sitting next to me. At first he started caressing her hand and I saw how uncomfortable it made her… so she let go and put her hands in her pocket. He then proceeded to forcibly do it again. In the process of doing so, he hit my knee and I told him ‘Yo, bro. Don’t touch me.’ 

“Then he started getting aggressive and saying ‘I can do whatever I want, you BLACK PIECE OF SH-T!’ I was so upset that I kept to myself after because I didn’t want the problem to escalate. Out of nowhere, he had the audacity to start feeling on this 15-YEAR-OLD girl’s leg. And no one said anything. So I yelled at him so loud that the bus stopped and everyone stared. I said ‘Yo, my n-gga! Don’t f-cking touch her again! You heard? Cuz if you do, We gon’ problems!’ He replied ‘I’m a real n-gga, so try me.’ Instantaneously he reached for his pocket and lunged at me. So I had to defend myself. I quickly gave him a couple combos to the face, knees to the nose and elbows to his neck. After doing so, I told the people on the bus to record and help me restrain him but no one stepped up…until this brave brother Odeh Hammoudeh lent me a hand.”

He also added that a black NYPD officer let him go after he had explained what had happened.

“Shortly after this black police officer, who was the sergeant, opened the door, congratulated me, and ordered to release the handcuffs,” Morancy explained. “To see a black man in a position of power right the wrongs gave me a little bit of hope for the NYPD.”

“I forget (the sergeant’s) name, but I want to say ‘thank you,’” Morancy told news outlet PIX11. “He said, ‘You’re a hero,’ and shook my hand and said, ‘I was you 20 years ago’... that touched me.”