Store Owner Comes To The Aid Of Woman After She's Attacked

DETROIT (WWJ) - The owner of a Detroit furniture store being called a hero after being in the right place at the right time.

Hussein Charara says he moved quickly to call police when a woman showed up screaming and banging on the front door of his furniture store on Warren near Greenfield last week.

"She was yelling, 'he raped me, he raped me, I escaped, I escaped,'" said Charara.

Police say the woman was kidnapped and chained to a pole in the basement of a nearby home and sexually assaulted for hours allegedly by 50-year old Anthony Rice who has since been charged.

Charara says he told the woman not to worry because he was an armed citizen with a license to carry.

And he doesn't consider himself a hero: "it's just what an ordinary person would do, just to be able to protect that person citizen - the police arrived and just call 911," he said.

Police say around 5 p.m. on April 30, Anthony Rice allegedly forced a 42-year-old acquaintance into his home in the 7200 block of Woodmont in Detroit and assaulted her.  She was finally able to escape, prosecutors said, after Rice unchained her, allowed her to get dressed, and then fell asleep.

"I met her outside and said, 'hey, are you okay, what's going on?' and she ... was just hysterical, yelling, crying, she had physical bruises and I knew something was up and it was serious."

"Luckily, she was able to make it out, she showed us the bruises on her head - she claimed that she was beaten with a hammer and the only thing that she wanted to do was to make sure this man was caught," said Charara.

Rice has been charged with kidnapping and sexual assault.