ALLENTOWN -- Newswatch 16 talked with some friends and acquaintances of John Cramsey, one of three people arrested Tuesday at the Holland Tunnel.
Cramsey seemed to be on a crusade after he lost his daughter to heroin back in February.
We found people who say John Cramsey is a volunteer, not a vigilante.
When Cramsey's 20-year-old daughter died of a heroin overdose in February, his friends say he became a man on a mission to help other parents whose children are addicted.
Cramsey's cause started just two weeks before a video of a meeting of concerned citizens in Allentown was posted to YouTube. In February, his 20-year-old daughter died of a heroin overdose.
Thomas Rodriguez runs a tattoo parlor in Allentown. He met Cramsey and his son when the two wanted memorial tattoos of Alexandra Cramsey just days after her death.
"He explained everything that happened with his daughter. And he cried," Rodriguez recalled.
Alexandra and her boyfriend lived in a building in Allentown that was once a clothing factory. Both died of heroin overdoses.
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According to the Morning Call newspaper, Cramsey says just after his daughter's death, he went into her apartment, to be where she was when she died.
Rodriguez says Cramsey coped by starting his mission of rescuing young addicts and returning them to their parents.
"He simply extended his hand, and faced people that no one had the courage to face and ask for that person back."
And that's what Cramsey was apparently planning when he was arrested at the Holland Tunnel in his company SUV.
Rodriguez said if Cramsey's vehicle had not been stopped he would have been successful rescuing the girl and the weapons would have remained in the vehicle.
One of the others arrested with John Cramsey is Dean Smith of Lehigh County. Rodriguez and others say Smith is a part-time journalist, who was recording the attempted rescue mission to post a video online, and to write an article for an entertainment magazine in Allentown.
