Sex assault suspect arrested after 3-hour standoff in Charlotte

Police arrested a man in North Charlotte after a three-hour standoff that required SWAT team members to surround his home.

Lavatae Evans, 31, is in jail facing more than a dozen charges, including sexual assault, kidnapping and armed robbery.

RAW VIDEO: SWAT team takes accused suspect into custody

Eyewitness News was at the house as police ducked behind patrol cars and SWAT team members swarmed Evans' home on Brewton Drive Thursday afternoon.

"They looked like ninjas," neighbor Georgetta Weathers said. "They were surrounding the house and police said, 'Everybody get into the house and shut the door.'"

SLIDESHOW: SWAT team takes down suspect

Police used their loudspeaker system to instruct Evans to exit the home. He surrendered about three hours later.

His girlfriend, Jerrica Bailey, said she can't believe the charges against her boyfriend.

WATCH: Sexual assault suspect arrested after 3-hour standoff

"He just had this look on his face like, 'This can't be true, this can't be happening,'" she said.

Bailey said they had an argument Wednesday night and he left around 11 p.m.

SLIDESHOW: Lavatae Evans mugshots

Police said he kidnapped two women at gunpoint and sexually assaulted them at the Sunset Inn on Equipment Drive just before 6 a.m. Thursday.

Then, they said he came back to Brewton Drive and sexually assaulted a third woman there at about noon while police were taking out warrants for his arrest.

But Bailey said her boyfriend is not violent and believes he's incapable of what police said he did.

"I've never seen him with a gun," she said. "He's not known to carry weapons. He's not that kind of person. You can look at him and see he's not like that."

Evans has been arrested several times before on charges including unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, misdemeanor marijuana possession and assault and battery.

Eyewitness News spoke with one of the women police say Evans assaulted.

The 19-year-old woman said she didn't think she'd live to see another day after the terrifying ordeal.

"We were scared. We thought we were going to die," she said.

The woman said Evans approached her and her friend at a convenience store and invited them to "party with him" at a hotel.

At one point, she said Evans wanted to leave.

"He had us drive into an empty parking lot with nothing around," she said.

That's when she said Evans pulled out a gun.

"He held it to the back of our seats and was like, 'If you all don't do what I say, you're going to die.' I was scared. I just started crying," the woman said.

At that point, the woman told Eyewitness News, Evans forced them back to the hotel, where he made the women perform sex acts and use cocaine.

"He was like, 'I'll shoot myself and I'll shoot you, too, and I really don't care about my life because I'm suicidal,'" she said.

The accuser said she and her friend saw an opportunity to escape when the gunman went to the bathroom.

"I searched for the gun and when he heard it click, he ran out the bathroom, and I tried to shoot him," she said.

The woman said she ran out of the hotel room with the gun and called for help.

According to arrest records, Evans has been arrested seven times in the past year and a half, but only one of those arrests was for a violent crime.

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