Northeast Austin Sonic robbed, employee shot

A Northeast Austin Sonic  employee was shot when two masked men carried out a take-over-style robbery.

On Tuesday night, employees at the Sonic Drive-In off East Parmer Lane were suddenly thrust into a crime scene.

Police say two masked men armed, with at least one gun, stormed the business 30 minutes before closing.

"We would kind of describe this as a take-over robbery where they just take over the whole restaurant, started ordering employees around and took an undisclosed amount of cash,” said APD Robbery Sgt. William White.

Sgt. William White says one of the robbers fired a gun striking a female employee.

On Wednesday morning, she remained in the hospital with a non-life-threatening injury.

A spokesperson for Sonic sent us a statement that reads:

"Fortunately, the crew member was taken to the hospital immediately and is doing well. We are thankful for the quick response by the police."

"Certainly we don't have any indication they had any motive. We treat that as very serious because we can only go off the assumption that they did it with the intent of scaring or intimidating people by actually shooting somebody,” said White.

Sonic employees described the suspects as black males in their late teens. One appeared 5'9" in height with a thin build. The other stood 5'2" with a medium build.

They were wearing hoodies and their faces were covered. They left in a dark-colored SUV.

White is anxious to find them.

"Obviously we're very concerned about this particular group of individuals. It's rare that we get robberies where somebody actually shoots, fires a gun, much less shoots a person,” said White.