CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Armed robbers escaped Thursday, after holding up a store with customers inside, which forced Phillip O'Berry Academy of Technology, on Alleghany Street, to lock down for safety.

Pamela Davenport gripped her little girl's hand tightly as they left the Big Lots store. It was barely an hour after thinking they might not get out alive.

"It just happened so fast. He just came in and pointed a gun in my face and I just fell to the floor and grabbed my daughter and covered her up," she said.

The two young men, wearing masks, took her purse, and then approached the cash register, and demanded the money there too.

The two men left through the same way they came in, through the front door. Once they were out in the parking lot, witnesses saw them run to a building, which opens to Phillip O'Berry Academy.

Because of the crimes proximity, police decided to lock it down the school.

The lockdown came just as the school was about ready to dismiss for the day and it lasted only minutes, until police tracked the robbers away from the school.

But it's far from the first time this school has had to react to danger nearby.

Philip O'Berry has gotten much attention over the past couple of months.

Last month, parents met several times to discuss several threats that happened at the school.

And in November, police say a boy and another girl sexually assaulted a 15-year-old student in the high school bathroom. Police didn't know if the suspects were students.