Grandmother injured during armed robbery at phone store

HOUSTON – Houston police said they're looking for three men who robbed a Metro PCS store and attacked a 65-year-old great-grandmother there to pay her phone bill.

Surveillance video shows the moment the masked men entered the store in Southwest Houston. The first robber pointed a gun at the clerk and at "Francis," the woman who was at the counter.

The second robber came skipping into the store, headed straight for Francis, grabbed her face, and threw her to the ground so hard she lost consciousness.

“I froze when I saw that big gun and that mask, and I just turned around and I said, 'Oh God,'” said Francis, who didn’t want her last name published.

VIDEO: Grandmother injured during robbery at phone store

Francis laid motionless on the floor throughout the surveillance video. She said she woke up before they left, terrified.

“I just kept my eyes closed because I was scared he might shoot me,” Francis said.

The grandmother of nine and great-grandmother of five said she was on her way to the cemetery to visit her late grandson’s gravesite when she stopped at the store.

The only copies of some videos of Roland, who died in 2005 at the age of 16, were on Francis’s phone in her now-stolen purse.

“Money, hey, it comes and goes,” Francis said. “But when it comes to special things like that, it hurts, you know?”

“What hurts the most is, you took videos of my son that’s no longer here,” said Irene, Francis’s daughter.

Francis worked as a teacher for 35 years. When Roland died, she suffered from severe anxiety and depression and quit her job.

“It’s the wrong person you messed with,” Irene said. “If it takes till my last breath, we’re going to find you.”

If you recognize the men in this video, contact Houston police. The robbery took place around 5:40 p.m. Sunday.