(CNN) When you open a lemonade stand you expect to slice a lot of lemons, sit outside in the heat and make a few dollars. You don't expect to get robbed at gunpoint.

But that's what happened to a 9-year-old boy in Monroe, North Carolina, on Saturday, officials said. The robber pointed a weapon at the boy's stomach and got away with a metal tin that held his earnings -- all $17.

The police recovered the empty tin nearby, along with a hat, a bicycle and a weapon -- a BB gun -- believed to belong to the suspect, Union County Sheriff's Office spokesman Tony Underwood said at a press conference.

"Just when you think you've heard it all, there's something else that will surprise you," he said. "I think people are capable of a lot of things, but not robbing a child at a lemonade stand."

Underwood called the crime "a new low."

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