Вы можете использовать multiprocessing.Process
для выполнения именно этого.
Код
import multiprocessing
import time
# bar
def bar():
for i in range(100):
print "Tick"
time.sleep(1)
if __name__ == '__main__':
# Start bar as a process
p = multiprocessing.Process(target=bar)
p.start()
# Wait for 10 seconds or until process finishes
p.join(10)
# If thread is still active
if p.is_alive():
print "running... let's kill it..."
# Terminate
p.terminate()
p.join()