Eastside Pharmacy and Compounding owner Billy Cannon released this surveillance photo in hopes someone would recognize the person who robbed his business at gunpoint Friday. See more photos in the accompanying slideshow.

Billy Cannon Jr. figures God gave him the peace to make it calmly through Friday’s armed robbery.

He was working behind the counter at Eastside Pharmacy about 1 p.m. when a white man wearing blue jeans, white tennis shoes, a blue hooded jacket, a red-billed baseball cap and gold-framed glasses entered the store at 22335 U.S. 72 East in Athens.

“He ran in the front door with his gun drawn and ran right up on us,” said Cannon, who has owned the store for 18 months.

“He told us, ‘Get down! Get down! I will shoot!’”

Then the suspect ordered Cannon to, “Give me all your oxycontin – fill up the bag.”

While Cannon filled the bag with the narcotic painkiller, a female customer who was at the counter making a purchase, quickly gathered her items and her purse from the counter while keeping watch on the armed gunman who, at one point, aimed the gun at her.

“After he got the bag, he ran out of the store,” Cannon said. “The whole thing took under five minutes.”

The suspect fled in a silver and blue, older-model vehicle behind Valley Imaging and then left the area on Bab Daly Road, said Athens Police Capt. Marty Bruce.

The store’s surveillance camera recorded the robbery, and Cannon gave the images to The News Courier Monday in hopes their publication might help some identify the robber.

“With those pants, the hooded jacket, those shoes – somebody’s going to recognize him,” Cannon said. “That is not an average look – it would stand out.”

Anyone with information about the suspect should call Athens Police Department at (256) 233-8700.