Detectives were searching Thursday for a disguised robber who held up a TJ Maxx in Santa Ana, scaring shoppers out of the store during broad daylight.
An armed man, caught on surveillance video wearing a long black wig and sunglasses, pointed a gun and demanded money while inside the store.
Michelle Hughes was one of the shoppers in the store during the robbery. She said she visited the store that day to purchase a swimsuit for her vacation.
"I hear a woman's voice pleading, 'no no, please no. I'm sorry,'" Hughes said.
Hughes didn't see the robber, and wasn't sure exactly what was happening. She followed a crowd of shoppers headed to the store's emergency exit.
"It was all very slow motion. It wasn't chaos," Hughes said. "In a very soft voice they were saying 'a gun, gun, a man with a gun,'" Hughes said.
Once outside of the store, shoppers ran into a gardener and piled into his truck to get away from the store. The gardener drove the shoppers to a nearby theater where they called police.
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"I'm just grateful. Grateful nobody was hurt," Hughes said.
"I can guarantee you that any place I go to that I will know there the emergency exit is," she said.
The robber was able to get away with an unknown amount of cash.
Witnesses told police the man may have gotten away in a dark blue BMW convertible.
