Palo Alto police are looking for a man who tried to snatch the purse of an elderly lady in the Midtown neighborhood on Monday morning but who ended up running away after she triggered an alarm on her keychain, according to a news release.

Police received a call at about 2:05 p.m. on Oct. 9 from a woman who reported that she was a victim of a robbery attempt that occurred at about 9:30 a.m. that morning while she was in the parking lot of an apartment complex in the 2800 block of Middlefield Road, police said.

The woman was reportedly sitting in her vehicle with the driver’s side door open when a man approached her, grabbed the strap of her purse and demanded that she give it to him. The woman, who is in her 70s, held onto her purse while activating a panic alarm on her keychain, police said. The noise apparently scared off the man, who ran off southbound on Middlefield Road, according to the police.

The woman described the man as a white male between 18 and 22 years of age. She said he was about 5 feet 9 inches tall and 175 pound, with brown hair and brown eyes. He was wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt, ripped blue jeans and a black face covering, police said.

Police are investigating the case and are asking anyone with information to call its 24-hour dispatch center at (650) 329-2413. Anonymous tips can be e-mailed to paloalto@tipnow.org or sent via text message or voice mail to (650) 383-8984.