This sounds suspicious. Where was the store attendee? She did not remember anything except a hoodie and spoke English?

This story sounds completely reasonable to me.
Criminals are like predatory animals, they avoid risks because they cannot afford to be injured. They run away most of the time if they think that their intended victim has nothing they want or that their intended victim may be able to defend themselves.

Besides, what if the gun was a fake and the criminal knew he couldn't do much more than threaten?

As far as anyone in the store goes, I think it's highly unlikely for anyone inside to have noticed at all.

As far as the description of the victim, it's quite normal for people not to be able to describe the criminal at all. They may not even know if the criminal was male or anything else about them.

It's not like on TV shows, it takes a person who can react with inner calm in such a situation and who intentionally looks for details to tell the police, most people can't do that in a quick incident.

7-Eleven stores have surveillance cameras, right? If the perp was loitering around the store, surely they have video of him. All retail businesses that are open after midnight really need to have video cameras to protect their employees and customers.

Cameras?
I suppose that depends on where exactly the attempted robbery took place.
Maybe the criminal cased the place and looked for cameras and stayed out of view.
I assume that most such cameras are inside the store.

In any case, cameras often are not good enough to recognize a face or give useful details.

One more thought, maybe the police have not yet released the information that they have a good video of the guy so he wont run away from the area.
Maybe they have a good picture and are tracking him down now, but they wont tell the public until they get him.

Why does any store have to be open at 4:30am? Just asking for trouble IMO, but then again, I am old school.

"pokeman"is always over there. He probably knows. Same as the RV that is always next to Costco.

But lets see if MV Voice will leave this up... or delete it because they have no idea who Pokeman is (or what is going on in Mountain View)

Hey MyOpinion,
I guess you've never had to deal with a pregnancy, either you or your wife?
Cravings can strike at 2am.

Or never had to drive a long road-trip?

Or worked a job past midnight?

Or had to get up to go to work at 3am?

If there was no real market need for 24hr stores I assure you they would not exist.

The area should be declared a 'gun free zone'. That should put an end to any further shenanigans