Police: Student who was walking home was raped

A student walking home from school was recently raped at knifepoint in Orange Mound, Memphis police said.

Officers responded Monday afternoon, the police department posted on Facebook. The victim said she was walking home from school in the area of Deadrick Avenue and Pendleton Street when a man with a knife forced her to walk to an abandoned house where he raped her, the police statement says.

The intersection of Deadrick and Pendleton is near Melrose High School, but it’s not clear that the victim is a student there.

The police department didn’t give the victim’s age.

Police said they’re looking for a man in his early 20s with a beard and mustache. He was wearing a black hoodie, black pants, blue and gray camouflage boxers and black and gold shoes.

In a separate incident the same day, a man reportedly tried to kidnap a 12year-old girl who was walking in the 900 block of Pope in the Highland Heights area.

The victim told police that around 5:20 p.m., the man stopped next to her in a small bluish four-door vehicle, possibly a 1990s model Nissan. The man opened the door with his pants down and told her to get in, at which point the girl ran away.

Police are apparently looking for different suspects — they described the first man suspected in the rape in Orange Mound as African-American and the second man on Pope as Hispanic.

The MPD is asking anyone with information about these incidents to call CrimeStoppers at 528-2274.

Separately, a woman was arrested this week in the attempted kidnapping of a small boy in the Highland Heights area.

Reach reporter Daniel Connolly at 529-5296, daniel.connolly@commercial appeal.com, or on Twitter at @danielconnolly.