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Santa Ana : Man Arrested After Escaping Police Vigil

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A man who allegedly held a young woman against her will in his house, then escaped an all-night police vigil, was later captured in Fountain Valley, police said.

Santa Ana police said the suspect, James Edward Fish, 49, was booked into County Jail on suspicion of attempted rape and assault with a deadly weapon.

He was arrested at a Fountain Valley home about 11 a.m. Friday after an anonymous tip, police said.

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Lt. Robert Chavez said that late Thursday night police received a call from neighbors on Ballast Avenue that they heard a woman screaming.

A 22-year-old Huntington Beach woman fled that house shortly afterwards and said that she had been held against her will by a man who had picked her up earlier in the day as she was hitchhiking. The woman, who was not identified, said the man took her to the house and threatened her with a gun because she refused to have sex with him.

Chavez said the woman had already escaped when police arrived. Officers surrounded the house and called the man by telephone and with a bullhorn, ordering him to surrender, Chavez said. When he did not come out, tear gas was lobbed into the house.

By 6 a.m. Friday, police determined that the house was empty. The suspect had evidently escaped before police arrived, Chavez said.

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