WAHPETON (AP) - A month after she was shot in a robbery at the convenience store where she worked, Roberta Maurer says anger at the suspects is a waste of time.

"It doesn't help to be angry with anybody. They did it for their own reasons and my opinion or anybody else's isn't going to change what they did," Maurer said. "I can't say I liked it. I'm just glad it's over and that they're caught."

Police arrested James Kenyi, 19, and James Samuel, 20, both of Fargo, early Nov. 16, about an hour after a Stop-N-Go store in Wahpeton was robbed. Authorities chased the suspects on U.S. Highway 75 through Wilkin and Clay counties in Minnesota.

Kenyi was charged with aggravated assault and armed robbery. Samuel was charged with being an accomplice in the armed robbery.

Kenyi appeared in Richland County District Court on Tuesday to request a preliminary hearing. Samuel has already requested a preliminary hearing. No dates have been set.

"Hopefully this wakes everybody up and people know that they can't get away with (crime) even in a little town," Maurer said of the arrests.

Police say Maurer was working in the store when a man with a stocking cap over his face walked in, carrying a semiautomatic rifle.

At first, Maurer thought it was an after-Halloween prank. "Once I saw the rifle, it was no joke," she said.

"I said, 'What are you doing?'" Maurer recalled. The masked man shot once into the floor a short distance from the door and, demanded the "big money," cash from the store safe, she said.

Maurer said she hurried around to the back of the clerk's counter, but apparently, not fast enough. A bullet pierced her left knee, shattering the bone and dropping her to the floor.

"I think it flustered him or mixed him up … I can't really say he did it intentionally," she said.

Maurer said she remembered thinking, "Why did he shoot me? I was following directions." The pain never really crossed her mind, she said.

The man demanded that Maurer continue to the safe. "He said … he didn't want to kill me," she recalled.

She told him she could not move, and he would have to help her. The man took Maurer's arm and dragged her to the safe, she said. He fled with the safe's contents.

Maurer said she was so focused on getting her attacker out of the store she never felt panicked.

Now several weeks after the robbery, Maurer sometimes has flashbacks, she said. But she is comfortable talking about it.

"The more you talk about it the less you fear it," she said. "You can't let it get you down. Life goes on."

Maurer, used to working two jobs, 12 hours a day, won't be able to work for at least another year, doctors said. And she may never again be able to take a job that requires standing for long stretches of time.

The bullet tore through the corner of her knee. Surgeons at MeritCare Hospital in Fargo reconstructed the knee with bone fragments from a cadaver.

She may face more operations, including another reconstruction if her knee doesn't heal right

. "It's all just a waiting game now," she said. Doctors are making no guarantees that her knee will function normally again.

"She's a strong person," said Maurer's son, Bruce. "She handles everything so well."

Maurer said the support of family, friends and the community carried her through.

"I have gotten enormous support, which I am so thankful for," she said. "It's just nice how the community comes together when a situation like this happens."