Hays robbery under investigation

CLARK FORK — Bonner County sheriff’s detectives are investigating an armed robbery of Hays Chevron on Tuesday night.

There were no injuries and an undisclosed amount of cash was taken in the robbery, according to Det. Barry Reinink.

The robbery of the local landmark filling station and convenience store was reported at 7:25 p.m.

The suspect entered the store armed with a semiautomatic pistol and confronted the clerk.

“He told her to keep her hands up, that this is a robbery. He pointed the gun at her,” Reinink said on Wednesday.

The male suspect was wearing blue jeans, a black sweatshirt with a front pocket and a black ski mask. He had gloves and a backpack that were both black and gray. He was also wearing a gold watch on his left wrist, according to sheriff’s investigators. The suspect was also wearing a green parka.

The suspect is considered armed and dangerous and sheriff’s officials are cautioning the public not to contact him if encountered. The public is instead counseled to call 911 and report the suspect’s whereabouts.

Reinink, a former Las Vegas Metro Police officer, said the suspect’s demeanor seemed uneasy. He dropped the money at one point in the surveillance video and struggled with his face mask, Reinink said.

“I would say he hasn’t done this a lot,” said Reinink.

Reinink said locals reported seeing suspicious subjects in town in the days leading up to the robbery and investigators are trying to determine if the station was being cased before being robbed. Investigators also have some tips on a vehicle which may be linked to the incident.

“The big thing helping us is social media,” Reinink said of a post published on the department’s Facebook page. “It created such a storm that everybody is calling in anything that they think might be the least-bit related.”

The Chevron station has been owned by Bob Hays since the early 1960s and is widely regarded as a strong thread in the fabric of Clark Fork.

It’s the first robbery in Bonner County since 2015, when the Horizon Credit Union in Ponderay was targeted. Karl Erik Erickson was arrested a week after the heist, after family members recognized him in surveillance footage, court records indicate. Erickson was prosecuted in U.S. District Court in Coeur d’Alene, where he pleaded guilty to a federal charge of bank robbery.

Erickson, 34, is serving a four-year prison term at a federal lockup in Sheridan, Ore. He is slated for release in January 2019, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ online inmate locater.