A Jacksonville man was arrested after a woman said he tried to force her into his SUV in St. Augustine on Wednesday, police said.
Police were called to Orange and Riberia streets around 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday for a possible attempted kidnapping.
A 21-year-old woman told police she was walking on Orange Street when a man in a white Tahoe asked if she needed a ride several times.
She told him no and to leave her alone but he parked his car and came up to her.
He began telling her how beautiful she was and offered to smoke marijuana with her, police said.
She told him she doesn't do drugs and to leave her alone but he grabbed her arm, told her to come with him and pulled her toward his car.
She pushed him and tried to walk away and he continued to follow and beg her.
He finally left her alone when someone pulled up behind him and honked their car horn, police said.
The woman got into a police car and they were on the way to the police station when they saw a Tahoe matching the description of the suspect's.
He appeared to be driving slowly next to a woman who was walking on a sidewalk.
The woman told police it was the exact SUV that approached her.
Police got the driver out of the car at gunpoint and identified him as 24-year-old William Ross Cesery III of Jacksonville.
He saw the victim in a police car and told police he did not kidnap her before they told him why he was being detained.
He was uncooperative and refused to talk to police, officials said.
He was arrested for attempted kidnapping and taken to the county jail.
Public records show Cesery was arrested for battery in St. Johns County in 2015.
