MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A man with a history as a sex offender was arrested and charged after police say a witness saw a young girl being pulled into his Berclair home.

Jerome Sawyer was charged with violating sex offender residential and work restrictions.

Police say they were called to his home in the 700 block of Waring on Wednesday.

When Sawyer answered the door, he told police no one else was in the home.

But when officers checked the home, they say they found a juvenile female hiding behind a bed in Sawyer’s bedroom.

Friday morning the man who called 911 told WREG he saw a man in a small, silver car pull up to the house and drag the little girl from his car kicking and screaming into Sawyer’s house.

“The guy in the car drug her in the house and then he came back out of the house and got in his car and left,” said Richard Wright.

Wright said when he called and reported what  he saw to police he also told them the child was taken into the home of a registered sex offender.

He said it took too long for police to get there.

“It took the Memphis police department 47 minutes to get there from the 911 call.   They could have done anything to that little girl in  47 minutes,” said Wright.

MPD reported that the call came in at 8:37 p.m. and they made the scene at 8:59.

They said the 911 caller gave cross streets, not a specific address, so it took officers extra time to find the exact location.

The court affidavit does not mention a second man at the home.

Sawyer was convicted of aggravated sexual battery in 1987 and 1989, according to police.

He was arrested last year after he was caught in a car with five children who weren’t his.

He plead guilty to several counts of violating the sex offender registry act.

He was sentenced to two years in prison, with one year and 7 months of that suspended, and two years of supervised probation.

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