Officers responding to a domestic violence call in Placentia Thursday morning were told a 32-year-old man struck his girlfriend and her 1-month-old baby, threatened the woman with a knife and then doused their apartment with lighter fluid before turning the gas stove on in an unsuccessful attempt to set the place ablaze. Ruben Tapia, the subject of an all-points bulletin issued by cops responding to the 10:15 a.m. call, was later arrested by the California Highway Patrol near Chapman Avenue and the 57 Freeway.
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He was booked into Orange County Jail on suspicion of domestic violence, attempted
murder, attempted arson, false
imprisonment and assault with a deadly weapon.
The baby was unharmed, but the woman was taken from her apartment in the 300 block of Camarillo to a local hospital, where she was treated and released.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.