A woman armed with a loaded 9-mm semi-automatic handgun held a clerk at gunpoint on Friday at the Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy on Tusculum Boulevard and demanded drugs and cash, according to Greeneville Police Officer Tim Hartman and the clerk herself.

Officer Hartman confronted the armed woman moments later as she tried to leave the pharmacy and forced her to drop her weapon and surrender.

The suspect was identified Friday evening by Greeneville police as Samantha Jo Arwood, 30, 0f 127 Whispering Lane, Greeeneville.

She has been charged with aggravated robbery and is being held in jail, with a $150,000 bond having been set, a police spokesman said.

The pharmacy's clerk told The Greeneville Sun that she was behind the counter when the woman entered the business about 11 a.m. and pointed a handgun at a customer briefly before turning the weapon on her (the clerk), yelling, "Get out here and lock the door!"

"I was scared to death," the clerk said. "I told her I didn't have the key. The pharmacist ... had it," she added.

The pharmacist locked the door, leaving the keys in the lock, the clerk said, and the suspect produced a handwritten list of the drugs she wanted, which included morphine, oxycontin, fentinel, and various other narcotics and controlled drugs.

"She knew exactly what she wanted," the clerk said, still shaken from the experience.

"She held the gun on us while we put the drugs in a green bag she brought, and then she grabbed some of the cash from the register. She still had the gun on me and told me to walk in front of her to the door to unlock it," the clerk said.

"That's when I saw the officer. I was terrified that she would shoot me, and I kind of ducked under his arm and ran out the door, crying," the clerk said.

Two other people had been in the back of the pharmacy when the incident began, the clerk said, and they ran out the back and called 911.

Officer Hartman was at the police station when the call came in and rushed to the scene. It was "fast ... maybe two minutes," he said.

Hartman said that when he approached the door, a woman (the clerk) screamed and ran past him and he saw the suspect with her handgun pointing at him.

"I drew my weapon and ordered her to drop her gun and get on the floor," Hartman said. She complied, and was later seen being brought out of the pharmacy in handcuffs and being put into the back of a patrol car.

Several other Greeneville Police Department officers quickly arrived on the scene and began processing evidence and interviewing witnesses.

Officers were also checking the suspect's vehicle, which was parked at the end of the parking lot facing Bernard Avenue.

The identity of the suspect has not yet been released. A source at the scene said the suspect may be turned over to federal agents to face federal charges in the aborted robbery.