Bodycam video captures arrest of Fresno kidnapping suspect

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- New bodycam footage shown in court on Friday reveals the moment Fresno police officers responded to an attempted kidnapping.

The video shows several officers, with their guns drawn, rushing to the backyard of a Fresno home in December 2020.

Within seconds, the officers find Rodolfo Brambila.

He was sitting on the ground, with his gloved hands in the air as the police approached.

A moment later, his hands were behind his back.

Prosecutors say the 59-year-old was in the backyard to kidnap his Fresno City College professor.

They say Brambila went to her home, hid behind plywood, and put his hand around the professor's neck while flaunting a gun.

"I'm not resisting. I didn't come to threaten anybody," Brambila told officers.

While Brambila says he did not mean to cause any harm, prosecutors say he did.

They have charged Brambila with kidnapping, false imprisonment, and four counts of assault with a firearm.

"They found a stun gun with a spare stun gun cartridge. They found on the defendant's person handcuffs, zip-ties, chains with padlocks," Deputy District Attorney Jason Conklin told the jury on Wednesday.

Brambila has pleaded not guilty, and a county jury is now hearing evidence in the case.

On Friday, the jury saw video of what police found in Brambila's pockets.

"A taser. A taser," an officer says.

The brazen incident happened after months of communication between Brambila and his professor.

Text messages reveal Brambila's repeated requests to meet his professor in person during the height of the pandemic. She denied them all.

"I cannot meet in person," the victim said in court on Wednesday, reading from a screenshot of a text.

"I cannot take it anymore. I'm about to do something unthinkable," the victim said Brambila replied to her message.

His defense attorney has said what Brambila did was out of character for him.

The attorney will begin making his case to the jury on Wednesday.

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