MIAMI – A 22-year-old woman walking down the street in Miami’s Allapattah neighborhood became the victim of an attempted rape over the weekend, according to police, who arrested the suspect on Tuesday.
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According to the Miami Police Department, the victim was walking on Northwest 20th Street near 11th Avenue at around 6 a.m. Saturday when Jahbar Noel Moore, a stranger, walked behind and then ahead of her, asking her at some point what her name was and whether she had a boyfriend.
The woman ignored Moore, 31, of northwest Miami-Dade, and kept on walking, police said.
An MPD report states that shortly after, Moore “grabbed her from behind and choked her to the point where she could not (breathe,) humped her buttocks area, then dragged her off the sidewalk, into the grass and pulled down her pants” in an attempt to rape her.
The woman “twisted her ankle, began to scream and kick” Moore, police said.
A man who rode by on a scooter and saw what was happening “turned back around and scared (Moore) away,” the report states.
The woman told police that Moore whispered “I’m just playing” in her ear just before running off.
Authorities said the witness stayed with the woman as she waited for police and medics to arrive.
The arrest report states that detectives were able to identify Moore using surveillance video taken at a Subway restaurant on the nearby Jackson Memorial Hospital campus. Facial recognition software revealed him as the suspect, police said.
A Subway employee told investigators that Moore had said “that he had recently gotten out of jail,” according to the report.
A Miami-Dade deputy who arrested Moore for an unrelated incident recognized him from a be-on-the-lookout poster and called Miami police detectives.
As of Wednesday, Moore was being held without bond in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on charges of kidnapping, attempted sexual battery and battery by strangulation, as well as a slew of probation violations.