Six students who walked into a church parking lot on Westholme Avenue around 1 a.m. Sunday were held at gunpoint by two men in an attempted robbery.

Soon after, police arrested a 21-year-old man in connection to the crime.

He is being held on $100,000 bail, according to the office of the Los Angeles County Public Defender.

It is unclear whether the second man has been arrested. Police did not return phone calls for comment.

The six friends walked into the parking lot, making casual conversation and getting ready to drive to a friend’s apartment.

Jennifer Ho, a fourth-year American literature student, got in the passenger side of the SUV and put her seat belt on, while four more passengers piled into the backseat. Third-year sociology student Nicole Porter started to reverse out of the spot.

Porter heard someone tap on the window and stopped the car, thinking it was her other friends who were supposed to join them.

Instead, one man tried to pull open the passenger side door. Ho saw him grab the handle and locked the doors, but the man was able to pry her door partway open. A struggle ensued, during which the man pointed the gun directly into the car.

Ho said she didn’t realize the extent of the danger she was in, but said she began pulling the door instinctively.

“I didn’t realize until he had the gun out and smacked it in my window that the window was right between me and the gun,” she said.

Another man was trying to open the driver’s side door, Porter said, but Ho had successfully locked it.

For a moment, Porter said she was unable to act. Then an adrenaline rush kicked in, and she reversed the car, put it quickly into drive and escaped from the parking lot.

“I realized I needed to do something because I was the one controlling the car,” Porter said. “For me, it was scary because there were six people in the car with me that I was responsible for.”

Porter said she and some others were called back to the scene a little while later when police found two men who matched the description of the suspects and who were walking around in the area.

Although none of the students were able to positively identify both of the men, Porter was able to identify one man and the others identified the second man as being the attempted robbers.

Porter said she usually feels safe walking with two or more people.

“There’s not so much you can do if you have a gun pointed at you,” said third-year marine biology student Greg Powell, who was sitting in the backseat of the SUV. “Luckily, we were in the car already and had it in gear.”

Powell said he hasn’t really changed the way he acts, other than being more aware of his immediate surroundings.

He said he still thinks Westwood Village is a safe place overall.

Porter said she is slightly jumpy now when she walks at night, and Ho said she tries not to go places alone when it’s dark.

Both Porter and Ho said they thought they were safe in a group and weren’t paying close attention to their surroundings.

Even if they had been more aware as they walked, they said the parking lot was so dark that they probably wouldn’t have noticed the men approaching, nor would they have been able to prevent the situation.