MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – Police arrested a 26-year-old homeless man on Friday after accusing him of attacking a woman, then raping her at knifepoint near Lincoln Road on South Beach the day prior.
Miami Beach police said the attack happened just after 7:30 Thursday morning along Michigan Avenue, just north of 16th Street.
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According to an arrest report, the suspect, later identified as Willie Amzi Rouse, and another man had been bothering the 45-year-old woman as she walked along Lincoln Road.
Police said she lost sight of the pair, but as she cut through a parking lot, she again encountered Rouse.
Rouse, police said, “pushed the victim to the ground, struck the victim’s upper lip with a closed fist and pulled the victim’s underwear to the side.”
The woman grabbed a knife that was on the ground and stabbed Rouse in the upper body, the report states, but he was able to disarm her and turned the weapon on her, proceeding to rape her.
Authorities said Rouse then got up and ran west on 17th Street. Bystanders heard the woman screaming and called 911.
Police said the woman was able to gather two key clues that tied Rouse to the crime: She had overheard the suspect telling the other man he was from North Carolina and saw him wearing a pair of camouflage Crocs.
Miami Beach police arrested Rouse the next day on a charge of drinking in public. Police said they noticed that he matched a be-on-the-lookout notice for the rape suspect.
Police said Rouse told officers he was from North Carolina — and was wearing a pair of camouflage Crocs at the time of his arrest.
A detective would later notice a laceration on Rouse’s arm, “consistent with the victim’s account of the possible injuries sustained by her attacker during the sexual battery,” the report states.
Authorities said Rouse declined to speak with detectives. They arrested him on charges of armed sexual battery and misdemeanor battery and took his DNA.
As of Monday morning, he was being held without bond in the Metrowest Detention Center.
Jail and court records show that Miami Beach police also arrested him on a count of criminal mischief with prejudice in an unrelated case. Details weren’t immediately available Monday morning.
A local newspaper report states that in 2017, Rouse, then 19, was arrested in Gastonia, North Carolina after police accused him of pointing a pellet gun at drivers at a busy intersection.
It’s not clear what became of that case.