15-year-old boy rescues teenage girl from attacker

Earlier this week ABC-7 reported on a 16-year old girl who was attacked while out on a jog in El Paso’s Upper Valley.

Police say it happened Tuesday evening on the 5200 block of Montoya Street, just North of Country Club Road.

But the attacker was stopped.

“It was a pretty normal day actually, I was just hanging out with my friends,” said Cristobal Lujan

Lujan tells ABC-7 he was heading home along Montoya Street.

He heard what he said were terrifying screams.

“It was full on, like someone was attacking her,” said Lujan.

Police say 18-year-old Brandon Mendoza threw the 16-year-old girl into a ditch.

“He was sitting on her back, submerging her head in water,” said Lujan.

Lujan said he couldn’t think, and simply acted out of instinct.

“I threw the bike and I yelled stop and he looked at me and he stopped submerging her for a little bit. She put her head up and yelled, ‘Help me, help me’ and that’s when I jumped in,” said Lujan.

He said the young girl looked terrified.

“I’ve never seen that expression on anybody’s face before,” said Lujan.

The 15-year-old managed to pull Mendoza off the girl but Mendoza didn’t let it end there.

“I kept yelling at the guy ‘go away get out of here’ and he tried coming at me again with his mouth at my neck and I grabbed him by the shoulders and I pinned him down along the side of the levee,” said Lujan.

A neighbor saw the commotion and flagged down a passer-by.

“A trucked reared up. It turned out to be a retired officer, he had handcuffs and took the guy down and arrested him,” said Lujan.

Lujan tells ABC-7 after the arrest some police chatter caught his ear.

“They asked him why he did it and he said he was hungry,” Lujan said.

The young girl did have a few words for Lujan.

“She just said if I didn’t come she would have been dead and I was a saint,” said Lujan.

Many residents in the area call Lujan a hero.

“I don’t think I’m a hero. I just think I did something anybody else would have done. I was just at the right place at the right time,” said Lujan.