Two men who were breaking into a stolen 15-foot construction trailer took off empty-handed after an alert citizen called Palo Alto police, department spokeswoman Sgt. Kara Apple said.

The trailer full of power tools was stolen from a construction site on La Para Avenue in the Barron Park neighborhood sometime late Monday night, Dec. 3. The trailer was moved to the area of Cambridge Avenue and Park Boulevard in the Evergreen Park neighborhood, where an alert resident noticed two suspicious men breaking the trailer's lock.

Apple said locking mechanisms on construction trailers are difficult to break, so the thieves took some time to get in and made themselves obvious. The trailer also had a switched license plate, which was stolen off a car registered in Menlo Park, Apple said.

The suspects became nervous when they saw they were being watched. They fled in a gold-colored Jeep just before police arrived.

One of the suspects, a husky Hispanic man in his 20s with a pony tail, was seen being dropped off at the Valero gas station on El Camino Real and Stanford Avenue, where he fled on foot. Police searched for him, but he evaded capture, Apple said. He wore a brown sweater, which he took off and carried, a white T-shirt and baggy pants.

Police sought the gold Jeep but were not able to capture the driver, who was believed to have driven north on El Camino Real, according to police dispatch reports. He was described as a Hispanic man in his 30s, with wavy hair. He wore baggy black pants.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Palo Alto Police Department at 650-329-2413. Anonymous tips can be e-mailed to paloalto@tipnow.org or sent by text message or voice mail to 650-383-8984.

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