Noble Square store employee, customer assaulted during armed robbery

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Store employee Danny Sanchez is still cleaning up hours after two armed robbers assaulted one of his coworkers and a customer while holding up the Noble Square neighborhood convenience store where he works.

"It's not a good feeling to come to the store, and think that someone's going to run up to you with a gun in their hands," Sanchez said.

Sanchez says his boss said it all happened about a half an hour before Crater Food and Liquor, located in the 1100 block of North Milwaukee Avenue, was scheduled to close at 11 p.m.

He said it was as one of the store employees smoked a cigarette outside that two masked gunmen appeared and forced the man back into the store at gunpoint. That's when both robbers corralled that worker and another male employee working the register inside the store.

"He was behind the counter over here, so I guess he don't want to do what the guy tell him to do, and he hit him in the head with something," Sanchez said.

Investigators said the attackers eventually forced both men to the store's back office, where they were ordered to lay down on the floor, face down. The victims told police that's when the robbers stole whatever cash they could find before ransacking the business, looking for more valuables to take.

Store workers said around that time, one of the regulars wandered into the store and was beaten bloody while being told to get down on the floor.

One man said he almost suffered the same fate.

"I saw their hands, and I'm like, 'Oh, they've got guns.' And they saw me. I've got my chains, and I'm like, 'You all not robbing me today,'" said neighborhood resident Vernon Young.

The man ran back into his apartment building and called 911. The armed robbers managed to get away.

Authorities said the customer and employee attacked by the gunmen were taken at an area hospital in good condition.

In the meantime, no one is in custody and no arrests have been made.

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