Pullman Police arrested an 18-year-old man after he allegedly followed a female WSU student into her Churchill Downs apartment and assaulted her early Friday morning.

The student, 20, reported that she was walking to her apartment just after midnight when she noticed a man following her, Pullman Police Chief Gary Jenkins said. She tried to close her apartment door quickly behind her, but the man forced his way in.

After he began choking her, the student reported she broke free, put the man in a headlock and punched him in the face. The man then broke out of her hold and fled the apartment.

The student called 911 and responding officers located a person nearby with a cut on his face consistent with being hit, Jenkins said. She positively identified the suspect, Juan Alejandro Mendoza Ortiz, as her attacker. Police arrested Ortiz for first-degree burglary and second-degree assault and booked him into the Whitman County Jail. He is not a WSU student.