CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A group of teenagers used a squirt gun filled with pepper spray to attack a woman in Cleveland's Gordon Square neighborhood Tuesday evening, police said.

The woman parked her car in the lot on West 65th Street behind the Capitol Theatre about 7 p.m. Tuesday and was walking toward Detroit Avenue when three boys who looked about 13 years old asked to use her phone, according to police.

She refused, and the boys asked her for money. She again refused, police said.

That's when the boys, who had a squirt gun with them, sprayed her in the face, police said. The woman's eyes started to burn, and the boys tried to snatch her purse.

They did not get the purse. The woman screamed, and the boys ran through the parking lot. They headed south on West 67th Street toward Detroit Avenue, police said.

Surveillance cameras in the parking lot and outside the Near West Theater captured the three suspects running from the scene just after the attack, and again about two hours later, police said.

The Detroit Shoreway Community Development Corporation is working to find more surveillance footage of the suspects.

Detectives released the photographs in hopes that the public can help identify the boys. Anyone with information about the attack can call police at 216-623-5218.

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