ST. PAUL — Two teenage girls in Minnesota have escaped a robbery at knifepoint by outrunning a man who they told police was heavyset.

Bradley Schaefer on Monday called a St. Paul sergeant he knows and said he tried to rob two girls. The 45-year-old was charged with two counts of attempt to commit first-degree aggravated robbery.

The 14- and 15-year-old girls tell police they were walking in St. Paul when a man approached them with a steak knife and demanded their purses. The girls say he chased them but he was too slow and they lost him.