ORANGE COUNTY, Fla.,None — Orange County deputies are searching for two men on Friday who they said forced their way into a Puma outlet, held a manager at gunpoint and then robbed the store.
Deputies said the men came in through a back door of the Puma store at the Orlando Premium Outlets on Vineland Road late Thursday night. The robbers then grabbed the manager and forced him into the office to open the safe, deputies said.
Investigators said there were about six people inside the store when the two men dressed in all black and armed with guns raided the place and demanded money.
Witnesses told WFTV that the robbers were armed with a shotgun when they burst through the back door.
Deputies said the men got away with a significant amount of money.
The Puma employees ran over to Tiffany Gonzalez's store for help, deputies said.
"They just came knocking at our door like fear in their eyes and they are like, 'Oh there are these guys with shotguns, they robbed Puma," Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez said she didn't know the workers so she was afraid to let them inside.
She called security and waited for deputies to arrive.
"We set up a perimeter using our K-9 unit, which led us to believe that they probably fled from a vehicle from there," said Lt. William Vandewater of the Orange County Sheriff's Office.
The Puma employees were not injured, deputies said.
However, Gonzalez said it still scares her to know how driven the robbers were to get money from a store a couple of feet away from hers.
"It is really scary to think that something that drastic happened so close to us. Because it could have been us, it could have been any store around here," said Gonzalez.
Investigators told WFTV the robbery most likely has nothing to do with a robbery in the same outlet a few weeks ago.
WFTV
