An Alexandria man exited a home with a child in one arm and a rifle in the other, threatening two women who had come to get the child, according to police.

Willie Ray Sanders Jr., 23, later was arrested by the Alexandria Police Department and booked into the Rapides Parish Detention Center on charges of aggravated assault with a firearm, simple criminal damage to property, possession of a firearm by a felon and unrelated warrants.

Officers had been dispatched to a house in the 900 block of Canal Drive, off Bayou Rapides Road, around 3 a.m. Thursday for an assault report.

The women said Sanders had threatened them and broke a phone. Sanders took the child to his home, and the mother and a friend followed, reads a release.

Sanders refused to hand over the child, it reads, and the argument continued until Sanders walked out with the child and the rifle.

He allegedly pointed the rifle at the women and threatened to shoot the car, chasing them as they drove off, it reads.

Officers got permission to search the house and "located an AK-style rifle, which Sanders said was his," it reads.