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Star athlete charged with rape

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — A former high school star football player is accused of raping one woman and trying to force another to go with him after showing her a gun.

Zacharie Powell, 17, was the quarterback for Rockdale High School last year. School officials said he is not enrolled in the district this year.

DeKalb County police arrested and charged him with kidnapping, rape and aggravated sodomy.

Officers said Powell showed a woman what looked like a gun as she walked on Glendale near Hatton in Scottdale. They said he told her to walk with him.

Officers said she ran and screamed for police. She gave them a description and officers said they later saw Powell pull into the Oak Forest apartments where he lives.

"As they were detaining him, questioning him, it's at that point a radio call came over the airways," DeKalb County Police Department Spokeswoman Mekka Parish said.

A 22-year-old woman nearby had been sexually assaulted. Police said the man who attacked her matched the description of the gunman who approached the first woman.

That's when Powell was arrested.

A woman who lives next door to Powell told Channel 2's Tom Jones he and his family had recently moved in. She was stunned to hear the allegations.

"It's sad. I mean I would have never thought anything would happen like that right next door to me," she said.

Women who walk in the area where the woman said Powell tried to get her to go with him at gunpoint are happy police have made an arrest.

"That's scary. I mean I come through here just about every other night," Lakeva Lowe told Jones.

Police said charges are pending in another case involving Powell.

Police credit good work and good descriptions from the victims for helping to solve this case.

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