LEWISTON — Police were searching Friday for a man who robbed a Lisbon Street convenience store Tuesday evening while wielding a knife with a foot-long blade.

Officers are examining security camera footage of the robbery and following all leads, Lewiston police spokesman Lt. Michael McGonagle said.

Liza McPherson, the clerk who was at the scene, said she was angry with the armed man who brazenly walked into the Gulf station at 515 Lisbon St. and left with about $1,500 in cash.

“I want them to catch him so bad,” she said. “It’s like, ‘How dare you!'”

McPherson had stepped outside the store to talk with a customer when the man crossed the street, held the door open for her and followed her inside.

“I felt him getting close behind me and that’s when he said, ‘Hey,'” McPherson said. “He was right behind me with a knife.”

The man wore a mask. He also wore a green, paint-spattered hoodie with its hood pulled tightly around his face so that only his eyes were visible.

He guided the clerk to the register.

“He said, ‘When you get behind there, give me everything you have,'” she said.

Security camera footage shows the hooded figure, his long knife and McPherson’s fear as she seemed to flee from him to the counter.

She hurriedly tossed the cash onto the counter. He gathered it up and fled.

Three days later, McPherson’s fear had turned to anger.

“Oh, I’m so mad now,” she said. “I want to punch him in the face — at least once.”

Station owner Houssam Georges said he, too, was angry about the robbery.

The store was robbed once before about five years ago, but he had felt it was relatively safe from such crimes since then. It is well-lit and sits on one of the community’s busier streets, he said.

“The customers who come in are mostly local and we know them,” he said.

He plans to make changes to ensure that much less cash is available to the clerks, lest someone else consider robbing the store.

And he hopes someone knows the robber and will turn him in.

“Someone knows him,” he said. “Someone saw something.”

dhartill@sunjournal.com