Police in Westmoreland County are searching for armed men who held up a bank in Ligonier Township this morning after first creating a diversion two miles away by shooting at a Dollar General store.

The men held up the First Commonwealth Bank branch on Route 30 in the Laughlintown community, county Public Safety spokesman Dan Stevens said. A part-time bank employee was ordered to open the safe.

When he told the robbers he didn't know the combination, he was hit in the head with a pistol. He was not seriously injured.

Then a full-time teller opened the safe.

Investigators said at a press conference this afternoon that the robbers entered the bank at 9:23 a.m., three minutes after the shooting was reported at the Dollar General in Ligonier Borough.

The lone officers from the borough and the township who were on duty at the time both responded to the store incident, as did police from surrounding townships.

They were looking for a black man in a white T-shirt who fled on foot south on Market Street.

He was not found.

While they were there, four masked men entered the bank, ordered the four employees and one customer to the floor. In addition to striking one employee, the men were described as profane and demanding.

Officials wouldn't say how much was taken.

The men fled east on Route 30 in a vehicle police refused to describe.

FBI Agent David Hedges said authorities are concerned about the level of violence.

"We have a group of bank robbers out there and they're shooting. We have to get them off the street," Agent Hedges said.

The use of an apparent diversion followed by a bank robbery resembles two other recent cases in the region. One occurred in the New Kensington area in April and the other was in Washington County during the winter.

Authorities said they were aware of the similarities.