RUMFORD – Two 18-year-olds were arrested Sunday and charged with attempting to rob a convenience store at gunpoint as the store was closing for the night.

Sgt. James Bernard of the Rumford Police Department said Michael A. Frost of Franklin Street and Alex Michael Robinson of Congress Street were charged with robbery.

Bernard said the incident occurred around 11 p.m. outside Mountain Valley Variety at Lincoln Avenue and Hancock Street. A male employee was locking the store for the night when he was approached by two men armed with what appeared to be semiautomatic pistol, Bernard said.

The men demanded the employee’s money. After the employee said he didn’t have any money, they demanded that he open the door.

“They asked him to smash the door in,” Bernard said. “He told them he wasn’t going to smash the door in. And a short time after that they fled the area on foot.”

Frost and Robinson, who matched a description given to police, were arrested about a half-mile from the store. They were spotted by Deputy George Cayer of the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office as they were coming off a footbridge near Rumford Avenue.

Bernard said police Sgt. F. David Bean and Patrolman Douglas Maifeld took Frost and Robinson into custody. Dixfield officer Charles Beale assisted.

Bernard said Frost and Robinson were cooperative and unarmed at the time of their arrest. The pistol the men supposedly used has not been recovered, Bernard said.

Frost was able to make bail, which was set at $5,000 cash or $50,000 surety, and was released from the holding facility at the Rumford Police Department. Robinson was taken to the Oxford County Jail, where he remained Monday afternoon on the same bail conditions.