Police say they have arrested Marcus Maurice Kennedy in the rape of an unidentified 12-year-old girl, who was abducted and raped on her way to her middle school this week, the Charlotte Observer said Thursday.

The arrest of Kennedy for Wednesday's rape marked his most recent brush with the law, after serving numerous jail sentences on charges ranging from assault to failing to register as a sex offender, the newspaper said.

John Driggers, an area apartment manager who chased off and apprehended the girl's alleged attacker, questioned the reliability of a law enforcement system that could not contain a repeat offender like Kennedy.

"Why is the justice system allowing somebody like this to be on the street?" Driggers told the Observer. "This isn't something that's just going to end today for that little girl. This is something that's going to haunt her for the rest of her life."