Video shows East Chicago salon owner robbed at gunpoint

EAST CHICAGO, Ind. (WLS) -- A salon owner came face-to-face with a masked gunman in East Chicago, Ind on Thursday afternoon. The robbery was caught on tape at Orelia's Hair Salon.

A security camera was recording as the man walked into the salon and pointed the large handgun at the owner and demanded cash.

"He came straight to me, straight to me, put the gun on me and said 'Give me all your money.' So I did, and he says, 'Where's the rest?'" said Orelia Jimenez, owner.

One customer was in the salon at the time. The gunman briefly pointed the weapon at her also.

Jimenez says the man was unhappy with the amount of cash she was able to produce - maybe a couple hundred dollars.

"I got scared. I said, 'Oh man, maybe that wasn't enough. He's going to blow my head off.' That's what I thought to myself," Jimenez said.

It was the latest in a series of armed robberies in East Chicago recently. Jimenez says she was not surprised. She was trying to give him what he wanted so he would leave without hurting anyone.

He ran out of the shop after about a minute. She then called police, and then her son.

"It's really kind of shocking when somebody puts a gun to somebody's head - somebody that size puts a gun to my mom's head. It really, it just burns you up," said Manuel Rodriguez, son.

Rodriguez said the couple hundred dollars the gunman got away with represents several days of income for his mother.

Nevertheless, the family is offering a $500 reward.