Store worker shot in robbery attempt

A Mount Rainier grocery store employee was shot and wounded during a botched robbery attempt Thursday, police said.

Just after five 5 p.m., two men, both wearing some sort of mask and one carrying a handgun, entered the store in the 3800 block of 34th Street and announced a robbery, said Mount Rainier Police Chief Michael Scott. Apparently "something went bad," Scott said, and one of the men fired the gun, striking a store employee in the back.

The employee, whom police did not identify, was transported to a nearby hospital with injuries not thought to be life threatening, Scott said. The men ran out of the store onto Bunker Hill Road, where they got into a blue minivan or SUV, possibly driven by a woman, he said.

Scott said one of the men wore a ski mask, and the other wore a gray women's scarf to cover his face. He said both were black males, standing about 5-feet-6 and weighing about 150 pounds.