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Last updated on Thursday, May 18, 2017
(BLOOMINGTON) - A homeless man was arrested after he attacked a woman near the Monroe County Courthouse on Monday night.
According to Bloomington Police Capt. Steve Kellams, a 24-year-old female told police a strange man had approached her and told her "she looked just like the girl who went missing on TV."
The homeless man started swearing and became upset after people in a passing car began yelling at him.
The man then allegedly pulled a knife out of his back pocket and pointed it at woman, then himself and began waving it around. The man claimed he had protected her from the people in the passing car, and he said they would have "both gone down" if a fight had ensued.
The woman fled when the man got distracted by a group of people walking by.
Officers already had 50-year-old Giovanni Chavez in custody on an unrelated incident when they received the woman's call, Sgt. Kellams says.
Chavez was taken into custody in front of a bar in the 200 block of North Walnut Street, after he had been falsely accused of stealing $7.92 from another homeless man.
When Chavez was stopped on that incident, police found he had a large, silver-and-yellow folding knife,
The woman was able to identified Chavez as the man who had waived the knife at her.
Chavez was arrested Tuesday morning on a felony charge of intimidation with a deadly weapon and is being held in the Monroe County Security Center on a $5,500 bond.
About six hours before the incident with the woman, Bloomington police officers issued Chavez a citation on a preliminary charge of trespassing after he was accused of refusing to leave the Circle K at Grimes Lane and Walnut Street. An attendant called police and said Chavez refused to leave the gas station, a police report states.
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