2 men seen on camera robbing jewelry store at gunpoint in north Austin - KXAN.com
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Security cameras caught two men robbing a jewelry store in north Austin at gunpoint.
The armed robbery happened Sunday evening at Iris Jewelry, which is located inside a laundromat at the Quail Creek Plaza shopping center on Parkfield Drive.
The surveillance footage shows a man holding a bag approach the counter at about 6:25 p.m., where an employee was talking with a customer through an open sliding window behind the jewelry counter. He is then seen pulling out a handgun from his sweatshirt and jumping over the counter.
One security camera showed a female customer cowering behind a chair when a second man walks up to the window carrying a rifle and a bag.
Owner Yisel Guerrero was not working at the time, but she said one of her employees told her that the man who jumped over the counter threatened her.
“The guy, he pointed to her, said a bad word and said, ‘Give give me the jewelry, or I will kill you,’” Guerrero said. “So she had no option but to do it.”
The surveillance showed the man behind the counter putting trays of jewelry into his bag and grabbing two earring displays before he and the other man with the rifle left the store. They got into a dark gray Jeep, which had been waiting for them outside the store.
Guerrero said police arrived about five minutes later after an employee pushed a panic button. Officers, however, were unable to find the two men and their getaway driver on Sunday.
“In one minute, they took half of our inventory, in just one minute,” Guerrero said. “It was super fast.”
The video showed that the first suspect had a goatee and wore a black cap, a black hooded sweatshirt, black pants and white sneakers. The second suspect had his hair pulled into a ponytail beneath a black cap. He had on a dark-colored sweatshirt, blue jeans and black sneakers. Neither man covered his face during the robbery.
Guerrero said her jewelry store and the laundromat will implement new security measures, but she would not elaborate about what those would include. She said she and her employees are still scared because the men have not been caught yet, but that fear cannot outweigh the need for her to just keep the business open.
“We have to work more hard now because they took a lot, so it’s very difficult to recover our loss, our inventory,” Guerrero said. “But we are able to work more hard to try to do our best for our customers and our business.”
The Austin Police Department is now investigating the armed robbery. Anyone who can help identify the suspects is asked to call police.
