GASTON COUNTY, N.C. (WCNC) - Dramatic surveillance video captures a gunman robbing a Lowell convenience store and attacking a clerk and her teenage son right in front of the clerk's four-year-old grandson.
The violent crime happened Sunday just before 7:30 p.m. at the Lowell Mini-Mart off I-85.
Lowell Police said the suspect is still on the run.
Leslie, the clerk seen in the surveillance video, described the experience to NBC Charlotte on the condition her face wouldn't be shown and her last name wouldn't be used because she feared for her safety.
"I just want them to get him so he doesn't hurt anybody," Leslie said.
She said her son and grandson came by to drop off dinner that night when a man walked up to the counter with a gun.
"He grabbed my son around the neck, pointed the gun at his head and pulled him back," Leslie said. "He said, 'I will kill your son!'"
Leslie continued, "He pointed the gun at my grandson and said 'I'll kill him!'"
"That's when my son tried to grab the gun from him," she said. "And that's when he hit [my son] in the head."
The robber then turned his attention to Leslie.
While her grandson tried to hide and her son ran outside to get help, Leslie and the robber struggled to open the register.
"We couldn't get it open. I said, 'I'm trying! I'm trying! I'm trying to get it open! I can't get it open!'" Leslie recalled. "That's when he hit me."
Police said the gunman pistol-whipped Leslie before grabbing two cigar packs and running to a waiting getaway car before speeding off.
Detectives believe the gunman was also involved in a carjacking in Gastonia and car break-ins at a Bi-Lo grocery store Belmont.
Investigators said the suspect is extremely dangerous, and they ask anyone with information to call 911 immediately.