PORT ANGELES — Detectives are examining surveillance videos from dozens of business and city cameras in areas around Just Rewards Espresso, which was robbed Tuesday.
Port Angeles Police Deputy Chief Brian Smith said footage would take a while to evaluate and see if the robber was caught on tape in any of them.
“There are many, many cameras in that area, some that people might not even know are there,” he said.
One complication, Smith said, is that business people who have surveillance cameras sometimes don’t know exactly which direction, or how much space, their cameras cover.
So, as detectives review the footage, they are also going through cameras that might not initially appear to have evidence but that could have caught images of the robber.
The coffee stand, 1001-A E. First St., was robbed at about 6:35 p.m. Tuesday.
A man who was in his 40s to 50s displayed a black handgun to a barista and demanded money.
He escaped with an undisclosed amount of cash.
The man was described by the barista as taller than 6 feet, with salt-and-pepper gray hair, a thin build and wearing a fake goatee.
He was wearing a blue baseball cap, glasses and a tan jacket.
Port Angeles officers, with help from the U.S. Border Patrol and Clallam County Sheriff’s Office, created a perimeter of a 1-mile radius around the drive-through espresso stand after the robbery Tuesday night.
They searched within that area for the robber.
The Port Angeles Police Department also had police dogs and their handlers searching for the man for several hours after the robbery.
The police activated a reverse 9-1-1 system to area businesses in which a recorded message was phoned into the businesses alerting them to the situation.
