Lakeview store robbed at gunpoint: 'I was just hoping to come out alive'

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A clerk was threatened at gunpoint and forced into a bathroom during a terrifying armed robbery at a cell phone store in Lakeview.

Police said the armed robbery occurred at approximately 5:45 p.m. on Saturday, in the 3900-block of North Ashland Avenue.

A 35-year-old woman, who did not wish to be identified, was working behind the counter when a man walked in asking about their inventory.

"As my job, we have to show them the phones," she said.

She said she walked to the back to pull out a few phones. While she was gone, the suspect was joined by a second man. He greeted her from behind the counter.

"He sticks up the gun and puts it like this, and he's like 'Don't say anything,'" she recalled.

Surveillance footage from the cameras covering the inside of the store recorded the employee dropping to the ground at gunpoint.

"I was laying down on my knees, and he pushed me down on the ground and he told me, 'Do you have money with you.' Yes, I have so and so in my pocket. 'Do you have more money? You better not be lying to me,'" she recounted.

After raiding the register, her bag and making a mess of the phones, they told the employee to get up off the floor.

"They took me in the washroom and I was thinking, 'OK, what's going to happen now,'" she said.

She stayed silent, shut in a back bathroom.

"I was just hoping to come out alive," she said.

While she was in there, the two suspects ran off.

The suspects are described as black men. The first is described as approximately 5 ft. 9 in. tall with a dark complexion, husky build and a beard, who was wearing baggy pants and a backpack. The second suspect is described as having a light complexion and long curly hair, who was wearing sunglasses and jeans.

This is the third cell phone store in the 19th Police District to be robbed since March.