Houston police are looking for an armed robber caught on surveillance cameras holding up a military wife who was working as a store clerk to earn money to join her new husband after basic training.
"I've never had a gun pointed at me," she said. "I never thought I could die just doing my job."
The young woman, so traumatized by the experience she didn't want her identity revealed, said she believes the armed robber would've taken her life in an instant.
The robber is seen walking into the Exxon at Barker Cypress Road and Park Row in west Houston around 5 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 21. He grabbed a soda, took a phone call and then pulled out a gun. He demanded cash and gave the clerk instructions, but what frightened her the most was a particular threat.
"He said, 'You have two seconds to do this. If a customer walks in before you're done, I'm going to shoot you and them.'"
The woman said she panicked and was shaking, but thoughts were focused on her safety and the safety of potential customers. The video also shows a young girl walk in just seconds after the cowardly crook tucks away the gun and walks out with the cash.
"As soon as he threatened to shoot somebody else I started thinking, 'You know, I need to do this, get him out of here because it's not just my life it's somebody else," she said.
The woman quit her job as a clerk the day of the armed robbery. Investigators with the Houston Police Department said they're looking for a black man in his 30s who is about 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighing 230-240 pounds. He has long braids and was wearing jeans and a gray hoodie and had a do rag on the top of his head.