An Austin, Tex. student was beaten and robbed at gunpoint while he was on FaceTime with his girlfriend – who witnessed the entire incident on camera.
Yale Gerstein,19, said he was on FaceTime with his girlfriend Baylee Luciani on the morning of Sunday, Oct. 23 when he heard scratching on his apartment door. When he went to open it, three men barged in.
“They were hitting me over the head with the pistol saying ‘face down, face down,’” said Gerstein to NBC affiliate, KXAN news. “You’re looking down the barrel of a gun hoping that you don’t see a bullet.”
Meanwhile, Luciani, who admitted she thought it was a joke at first, watched the entire incident unfold right before her eyes.
“I was scared…because they were saying [to Gerstein] ‘I’m going to blow your head off, I’m going to kill you,’” Luciani told KXAN.
She also said the men looked right into the camera, which was when she started grabbing screen shots of the suspects while her father called 911.
The images show the suspects holding a gun to Gerstein’s head.
“I’m like ‘wow’… seriously watching an armed robbery happen to somebody that I care about,” Luciani said.
According to KXAN, the men ran towards an apartment complex across the street and then took off in a white, “older looking police cruiser.”
Even through the entire ordeal, it was the music equipment the suspects stole that angered Gerstein.
“I had just finished my first album that I was working on as a solo artist. That’s all lost in someone’s possession who doesn’t even know what they’re holding. That’s what I hate the most,” he told KXAN.
Police continue to investigate.