Palo Alto police arrested three 16-year-olds from San Jose on Sunday for a residential burglary attempt and are looking for a fourth juvenile involved in the incident who drove away.

Police responded about 8:36 p.m. Sunday to the neighborhood near Juana Briones Elementary School after a resident in the 4100 block of Georgia Avenue reported a “stranger was repeatedly banging on her front door,” according to a news release issued Monday.

An officer who responded to check on the area found four juveniles emerging from a side yard of an unoccupied home in the 600 block of Georgia Avenue, which is about a block away from the home of the woman who called police.

When the officer addressed them, two complied and two fled. Police found one of the juveniles a couple of blocks away and arrested him, but the other juvenile drove away in a blue Honda Odyssey minivan.

“The investigation revealed that the suspects had removed two screens from windows in the rear yard of the home from which the officer observed them leaving,” the news release states. “They were not able to make entry into the home, which was unoccupied at the time.”

Police booked a girl and two boys into the Santa Clara County Juvenile Hall for attempted residential burglary, which is a felony.

Palo Alto police do not release information or booking photos of suspects under the age of 18.

Detectives are investigating whether these suspects are connected to other residential burglaries in Palo Alto or surrounding communities.

Police say the teens used a “common operating practice of residential burglars” in which they check to see if anyone is home by knocking on the door before breaking in through the back yard where they’re unseen by passersby.

“Police recommend that you never open your front door to someone you do not recognize and instead just speak to them through the closed door to let them know someone is home,” police said in a news release. “If the situation seems suspicious, call the police as the resident in this case did.”

Police also recommend locking gates to side yards.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call the city’s 24-hour dispatch center at 650-329-2413.

Anonymous tips can be emailed to paloalto@tipnow.org, sent via text message or voice mail to 650-383-8984, or submitted through the Palo Alto Police Department’s free mobile app, which can be downloaded at bit.ly/PAPD-AppStore or bit.ly/PAPD-GooglePlay.