Two men armed with a single pistol tried to rob a potato chip delivery truck Friday afternoon but escaped without taking any money.

At about 2 p.m. Friday, two black men with dreadlocks approached a Frito-Lay delivery truck in the parking lot of the Winn-Dixie grocery store at the Tifton Mall. One of the men was armed with a pistol and demanded money from the delivery man. The deliveryman told them that he had no money to give them.

“They got frustrated and hauled tail,” said Det. Shane Benefield of the Tifton Police Department.

The two men climbed a set of steps near the grocery store leading to the closed hotel next door, the Budget Inn.

Swarms of Tifton Police officers and Tift County Sheriff’s deputies arrived at the hotel and began searching every room. They found one door locked by a chain on the inside. Police Lt. Steve Hyman kicked at the door several times, giving him room to reach inside and unlock the door. The room was empty, as were all the rooms at the hotel.

About thirty minutes later, Officer David Osteen of Valdosta State Prison arrived with a tracking dog. The dog led officers from the Winn-Dixie parking lot, up the steps and then to a patch of sand in the hotel parking lot. There were footprints and tire tracks in the sand, but the trail went cold there.

Benefield said that his initial reaction to the incident was that the two robbers were from out of town. He described them as two clean-cut black men with dreadlocks. He said that the Tifton Police Department would continue to investigate the attempted robbery.



To contact reporter Dusty Vassey, call 382-4321, ext. 208.