U.S. Park Police have arrested a man accused of carrying out a carjacking in Southeast Washington last week in which a woman and her two young children were abducted, authorities said yesterday.
The children managed to flee the vehicle within minutes of the carjacking early Wednesday morning, but the woman was driven to a park, where she was beaten and sexually assaulted, police said. She is hospitalized in stable condition.
Melvin T. Watts was arrested Saturday.
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Melvin Tyrone Watts, 36, was arrested about 10:45 p.m. Saturday in Seat Pleasant after detectives received a tip in the case, said Sgt. Scott Fear, a Park Police spokesman. The arrest came after a brief foot chase, Fear said.
Watts, of the 5100 block of H Street SE, was charged with attempted first-degree sexual abuse and is scheduled to appear today in D.C. Superior Court.
The victim, a 26-year-old Southeast Washington woman, was readying her children -- a girl, 4, and a boy, 7 -- for a ride in her white Pontiac Sunbird just before 5 a.m. Wednesday in the 5100 block of Southern Avenue SE when Watts jumped into the passenger's seat and forced her to drive into Prince George's County, police said. Authorities called it a random attack.
Watts brandished a knife, and a struggle ensued, according to police. The victim pulled the car over and yelled for her children to flee, police said. A passerby saw the children, took them to safety and alerted police. The children are staying with relatives.
Police said Watts forced the woman into the trunk of the car and drove to Fort Chaplin Park in the District, where he allegedly beat her with a tire iron and sexually assaulted her. He then fled in the woman's vehicle, which was found nearby a short time later, police said.
The victim, who police said was nearly unconscious after the attack, crawled to the stoop of a nearby house.
Dwight E. Pettiford, acting chief of the Park Police, said the arrest was the result of cooperation between his department and D.C. and Prince George's County police.
"You had a lady who was savagely beaten and brutalized by someone, and now she's recovering and we have a suspect in jail. And that's what policing is all about," Pettiford said.
Pettiford called the woman "a very brave lady" and lauded her for thinking quickly to remove her children from potential danger.
"They followed their mother's instruction to flee," Pettiford said. "I'm glad they did the right thing, so they weren't harmed any further. They weren't physically harmed because they did what their mom told them to do."
