TACOMA, Wash. -- Police here say two men who witnessed an attempted abduction of young girls couldn't just sit and watch, or even wait for the law.

The incident took place on Saturday afternoon in the 500 block of South L Street. A 5-year-old girl said she was standing outsider her home when a complete stranger grabbed her and her friend.

"(I) scratched him," she said.

The man wanted the pair to have sex with him, the girl said.

"He was trying to make us go to his house and go to bed," she said. "He said it to my sister, too."

But before the man could take the girls away, nearby kids who had seen what had happened began screaming at the man until he finally let the girls go.

One of the kids then ran home and told his mom about the incident while a neighbor called 911. Before police arrived, however, two strangers pounced on the man.

The two men, who had been sitting in a parked truck down the street, had witnessed the incident, investigators said. The men grabbed the accused man and beat him, then fled before police arrived. The men's identities are not known.

Police arrested Billy Joe Shank, 45, in an alley behind Tacoma General Hospital. He was bloodied and bruised, they said.

Shank has been booked into jail under suspicion of attempted abduction.

No children were injured.