Police are looking for a Latino male in his twenties who robbed a Ceres cigarette store by firing a flare gun toward the clerk on Saturday evening.

The clerk at News & Discount Cigarettes at 1530 E. Hatch Road reported that the robber entered the store at 6:04 p.m., brandishing a yellow flare gun and demanding money. The 35-year-old clerk believed the gun to be a fake and told him no, said Ceres Police Department spokesman Sgt. Jose Berber. The suspect responded by pulling the register off the counter to the ground, which broke it. At the same time the clerk threw a box at the suspect who then fired the flare gun towards the clerk, missing him but burning a display behind the register.

The suspect, who was wearing a black shirt and a black backpack, escaped with an undisclosed amount of money as he fled on a bicycle down Richland Avenue behind dd's discounts.

Ceres detectives are asking anyone with information on the crime or the suspect, judged to be 5-foot-8 and about 25, to contact Ceres Police Detectives at 538-5727 or Crime Stoppers at 521-4636.