A man wielding a gun attempted to rob a Bainbridge convenience store Saturday night, threatening the store’s employees before leaving empty-handed.

Saturday’s attempted robbery was the most recent in a string of violent crimes at convenience stores, including one last week in Climax. This time, the robber took along a bystander with him inside the Junior Mall at 417 S. Scott St., where the attempted robbery took place around 11:30 p.m. Saturday.

The bystander told Bainbridge Public Safety officers he was sitting outside when the suspect walked up from the north side of the store, pressed a handgun in his back, grabbed him and forced him to open the store’s front door. Once inside, the suspect demanded cash from the store’s registers. However, when the store’s clerks told the suspect they had no money to hand over, he racked the slide action on the handgun, as if preparing to fire.

Instead, the suspect fled out of the store on foot. Another witness who had driven up to the store and encountered the bystander chased after the suspect in his car but lost sight of him near the railroad tracks on Back Street in central Bainbridge.

Bainbridge police, the Sheriff’s Office’s crime scene unit and Georgia State Patrol troopers all responded after the attempted robbery was reported.

Witnesses described the suspect as a dark-skinned male who wore a burgundy hoodie-style jacket, a dark blue ski mask, dark-colored cargo-style pants and gloves. The bystander described the suspect’s weapon as a silver weapon with a slide-action locking mechanism similar to those used by police.

Anyone with information about the robbery suspect can make an anonymous tip by calling Bainbridge Public Safety at 248-2038.

While police arrested two suspects after an armed robbery at the Quick Change in Attapulgus in late August, they are still seeking suspects in the Sept. 7 armed robbery of the Quick Buys in Climax and in the Sept. 7 burglary of Yogi’s Convenience Store in West Bainbridge.