Store clerk talks about robbery caught on camera

LAWRENCE, Mass. -- A store clerk in Lawrence talked about a frightening crime that was caught on camera. A robber threatened to kill the woman and her 3-year-old daughter if they didn’t cooperate.

The nightmare lasted two minutes for the mother and daughter as a suspect pointed a gun directly at their heads.

“Right when she picked her daughter up he put the gun to the baby's head saying I’m going to shoot her if you don't get the money,” said the woman through a translator.

The young mother was back at work at Tu Casa Multi-Service in Lawrence on Monday, but she was too scared to show her face on camera. She spoke through a translator saying that she had her daughter with her while she opened the store, waiting for the babysitter to get there. The suspect barged in, gun already drawn, and demanded money.

“She just kept saying mommy, mommy, mommy, screaming asking what was going on,” the woman said through a translator.

The little girl was crying, and the mother is seen cooperating with the suspect in the surveillance video. The suspect went through the register and then forced the woman to the ground. A moment later he brought her into the back to open a safe. He also took her purse that had about $200 in it and all of her personal papers. The store's owner said she's afraid too.

“I don't trust nobody right now. Everybody is a suspicious person. Anybody I see looking at me I think he's up to something,” said the store owner.

The women hope someone recognizes something about the suspect, even though he was masked and wearing all black. The mother and daughter are still shaken. The 3-year old girl wanted to know why someone in a Halloween costume wanted to hurt her mother.

“When he took her back she was just grabbing tight to daughter because she didn't want nothing to happen to her,” said the store owner.

It wasn’t the first time the owner had been robbed. She said somebody robbed her a few months ago while she was walking to her car. It was, however, the first time anyone had entered her store to rob it. The woman believes she is being targeted by someone who is familiar with her business.

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