SAN DIEGO (AP) - Police in San Diego swarmed an abduction suspect to the ground and rescued his four children Thursday after a highway pursuit and standoff.

The dramatic arrest capped three days of intense search efforts to locate Daniel and Erica Perez, of Montebello, California, and their four sons, ages 6 to 11.

On an elevated overpass near the San Diego suburb of Santee, officers used two armored trucks to surround the vehicle. Daniel Perez then came out of his car, clutching one child while another walked behind. He walked toward the edge of the freeway ramp railing, dangerously close to the roughly 200-foot drop-off, California Highway Patrol Officer Kevin Pearlstein said.

"Immediately, when he stopped there, that's what we all said, 'You just don't stop right here unless you're thinking of jumping,'" Pearlstein said.

Officers shot Perez with a nonlethal bean bag and then tackled him.

All four children were rescued and not physically harmed, officers said.

Investigators found a Honda Accord belonging to the couple with the body of a dead woman in the trunk about a half-mile from their Montebello home Wednesday.

The body had not been identified Thursday. An official with the Los Angeles County coroner's office said no details could be released because the case is on a security hold by Montebello police. Police have identified Perez as a person case in the disappearance of his wife.

The California Highway Patrol issued an Amber Alert Thursday stating the child had been "taken by their biological father." The alert identified the child as Jordan, 11, Jaiden, 9, Tristin, 8 and Alex, 6.

In a tearful press conference Wednesday night, relatives begged for the children to be brought back.

"You're breaking our heart," Pamela Valdez, the children's aunt, said. "Please don't hurt the kids, please."

The family had not been heard from since Friday, and neither adult had been answering their phone. Relatives told police the couple's marriage was unstable and that there was a history of domestic violence.

Montebello is located about 15 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

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Armario reported from Los Angeles.