Police1 Staff Report
(CHARLOTTE, S.C.) -- After a six-hour New Year’s Day standoff police arrested a 33-year-old Cheraw man and charged him with three counts of first degree rape.
According to authorities, John Edward Cue, held off police for six hours at the Eastway Crossing shopping center during which he raped an ex-girlfriend twice and her coworker once.
The coworker managed to escape through a back door and alerted police to the assault. Cue fired four times at the woman as she fled, but she escaped uninjured, police said.
Cue went to the clothing store at approximately noon, apparently angry that the woman had ended the relationship.
Police have also charged Cue with two counts of kidnapping and one count of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or inflict serious injury, both felony charges. He is being held on $485,000 bail.
Police did not say what prompted Cue’s surrender, but during the negotiations Cue had two cell phones and was talking to relatives on one of them.
“The goal is to resolve the situation without injuries,” Capt. Earl Mathis, a SWAT supervisor, told the Charlotte Observer. “By that standard, it was a success.”