Desert Hot Springs police are looking for a man who tried to take a woman's purse Wednesday morning and shot at another man who stopped to help.

Cmdr. Ed Smith said police believe they know who fired shots in an open lot at the intersection of Ironwood and Caliente drives around 7:45 a.m. but were not yet releasing the suspect's name.

"We're continuing to look for the suspect, and we're interviewing witnesses as well," he said at about 2 p.m.

Smith said the gunman, who is believed to be between 18 and 20 years old, attempted to take a woman's purse and got into a verbal argument with a man who saw the robbery attempt and stopped to help.

Fawn Myers said she saw the two men arguing from her backyard. She said the men were standing on opposite sides of Ironwood Drive exchanging profanities when one man aimed a gun at the other and began shooting.

"(The gun) was directly pointed to him, but the gun was kicking back ... like he couldn't hold it steady," she said.

Neighbors said they heard about five shots.

None of the shots hit the victim, who was not injured, Smith said.

Robbie Froehle, who lives diagonally across the intersection from the empty lot where the shots were fired, said she heard the gunshots while sweeping out her garage and looked out to see a man walking north.

"He started walking really quickly, like in a hustle," she said. "He disappeared quickly because the police were here pretty fast."

Froehle said the man had what she thought was a gun in one hand and also held a bag.

Police looked for the gunman in an area bounded by Ironwood Drive, Caliente Drive, Hacienda Avenue and El Cajon Drive. K-9 units could be seen in the area, and a California Highway Patrol airplane circled overhead.

Smith said police entered some homes in the area while looking for the man but called off the search in the neighborhood around 10 a.m.

The principal of Two Bunch Palms Elementary School, which is about a half mile from where the shots were fired, put the school on lockdown for an hour Wednesday morning as a precaution, said Joan Boiko, spokeswoman for the Palm Springs Unified School District.

She added that parents were called Wednesday morning and informed that there was no police activity at the school itself.