Palo Alto police are looking for two men who sawed off a catalytic converter from a parked car during an armed robbery that took place near Pardee Park early Tuesday morning.

The brazen theft occurred shortly before 4 a.m. in the 1500 block of Louisa Court, according to a news release from the Palo Alto Police Department. They learned about it when a woman who lives on Louisa Court called the police to report the armed robbery that was then in progress.

The caller, who is in her 30s, told the police that she heard a vehicle pull up in front of her home and then heard a sawing noise, police said. She told her father, who is in his 70s, who went outside to confront the two men who he assumed were trying to steal the catalytic converter from the family’s 2009 Toyota Prius.

When the father approached the two men, one of them reportedly pointed a silver handgun at him and threatened multiple times to shoot him, police said. The other man remained under the car, where he continued to saw off the catalytic converter. The father then yelled for his daughter to call the police and went back inside, police said.

The two men drove away in a black sedan, according to the police. The father described the two thieves as muscular men of unknown race and age, both about 5 feet 8 inches tall. They were wearing masks, according to the news release.

Detectives are looking for any available video evidence of the theft and are asking for anyone with information to call the department’s 24-hour dispatch center at 650-329-2413. Anonymous tips can be emailed to paloalto@tipnow.org or sent via text message or voice mail to 650-383-8984.