photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Tristan James exits the courtroom on March 4, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

A man is alleged to have kidnapped and raped a woman in his car before he then fled from the scene, pursued by the woman’s friends and later police before the man sped across Lawrence and crashed into a pedestrian underpass.

Tristan Aden James, 20, a Haskell Indian Nations University student, is charged in Douglas County District Court with one count of rape, one count of kidnapping and one count of eluding police, all felonies. The charges are in connection with an incident on Nov. 2, 2024. He was arrested on the day of the alleged incident around 6:20 a.m., as the Journal-World reported.

According to a recently released police affidavit, a woman had arrived home to her Haskell University dormitory around 4 a.m. with some friends after a night of drinking when James called out to her from his car. The woman was curious how James knew her first name, and she and a friend approached the car. Both of the women got into James’ car and talked with him for about 15 minutes before the friend who was sitting in the back seat got out and went into the dorm.

Affidavits are used by law enforcement to show probable cause for an arrest. The allegations in them have not been proved in court.

While alone, James reportedly began flirting with the woman and started to touch her. The woman told James she wasn’t interested and tried to leave the car but James insisted she stay. A few minutes later, the woman called her friend for help on the phone app Snapchat; as she did, James drove away from the dorm and parked a few blocks away, according to the affidavit.

“He won’t let me leave. I’m scared. Please help me. Please get off me. Please stop. Let me go,” the woman said on the call.

The friend rushed out to get the woman, but James’ car was speeding away.

Once parked again on the Haskell campus, James allegedly crawled on top of the woman and assaulted her; the woman was able to fight James off, get out of the vehicle and flee back to her dorm, according to the affidavit.

However, the woman’s friend had already enlisted a group of friends to track down the car and the woman. The friend told police she was tracking their location using the Snapchat app. The group of students then found James’ car and went to rescue the woman, who they did not know had already fled.

When they tried to open James’ car door, he fled the scene. The friend then called police, and the group then began chasing James through the city. Police first joined the chase around 19th Street and Barker Avenue when an officer responding to the kidnapping call saw James’ white Hyundai pass by while being pursued by another car.

The officer attempted to stop James near 19th and Massachusetts streets, but James continued to flee, driving over 70 mph, the affidavit said. James then turned south onto Naismith Drive, running a red light, and turned again east onto 23rd Street, where his car jumped onto the sidewalk and struck a pedestrian traffic control device.

The orange Nissan full of Haskell students who were also chasing James crashed at 23rd and Naismith, but no one was seriously injured, according to the affidavit. Police made contact with the group of students, who then called the woman, who told them she had escaped and was back at her dorm.

James continued down 23rd Street before turning south onto Louisiana Street, where he swerved back and forth across lanes, the affidavit said. When trying to turn onto 27th Street, he lost control of the vehicle and crashed into the pedestrian underpass near Broken Arrow Elementary School. Police then arrested him.

James later told police that he had been drinking heavily that night and did not have any contact with the woman, nor did he know who she was. He said he was driving his brother’s car, and when he saw police, he panicked and fled. When police asked if they would find any of his “biological matter” on the woman, James responded that if they did he wouldn’t know why, according to the affidavit.

The alleged victim later told police that while she did not know James directly, she had added him as a friend on Snapchat when she approved “a blanket friend request” of people on Haskell’s campus. She said she had removed James from her friends list a few days before the incident because “she believed him to be weird.”

James has been in custody since the night of the incident on a $100,000 bond. He is scheduled to appear in court on Monday for a preliminary hearing. The hearing has been delayed once already for James’ attorney, Angela Keck, to get results of DNA testing from the KBI.