And a prosecutor said in opening arguments that a fingerprint on a box helped police identify the suspect.

Cletio Clark, 29, of Fort Dodge, has pleaded not guilty to one count of first-degree robbery, a class B felony, in connection with the Sept. 30, 2018, holdup at Applebee’s.

A jury of eight women and six men, which includes two alternates, was seated just before noon Tuesday, with testimony beginning around 1:30 p.m.

Much of the afternoon focused on the testimony of Miles Alcazar, who was the hospitality manager at the restaurant, located at 2810 Fifth Ave. S.

Alcazar testified that, around 1:30 a.m. on Sept. 30, 2018, he had gone outside the back door of the restaurant to smoke a cigarette. While he was back there, he said he noticed that a gate protecting the loading dock was partially open.

When he went to examine it, a masked man in a hooded sweatshirt jumped up and, armed with a handgun, chased after Alcazar before he could run back inside the restaurant.

In surveillance video that was played for jurors, Alcazar and the suspect spent several minutes on the loading dock before both went inside the restaurant. The suspect then went inside the office, grabbed cash that was inside the safe — which was opened and unlocked — and from the tills that were unsecured before running out of the restaurant.

Alcazar testified that he and the suspect talked for a bit. While he couldn’t remember too much from their conversations, he was able to convince the suspect to put the gun away so as not to scare any other employees.

“Is it fair to say you were scared?” Ryan Baldridge, first assistant Webster County attorney, asked Alcazar.

“Oh yeah,” Alcazar said.

He added that the suspect pointed the gun directly in his face.

After the suspect left, Alcazar called 911.

That call was played for jurors.

“I had a gun pulled on me and we just got robbed,” Alcazar told the dispatcher.

When Baldridge asked Alcazar if Clark was the man who robbed him that morning, Alcazar said he couldn’t say because all he saw were the suspect’s eyes. But he did say that Clark has a similar physical stature to the man who robbed him.

Alcazar said that the suspect left the restaurant out the back door and ran towards Burger King, located next door, and then across Fifth Avenue South toward Buffalo Wild Wings.

Cletio’s attorney, A. Joseph Wilson, of Ames, asked Alcazar under cross-examination if he could smell alcohol on the suspect’s breath. Alcazar said he did not remember smelling alcohol on the suspect.

“And you cannot identify my client as the individual that held you up?” Wilson asked.

“No,” Alcazar said.

Baldridge said in his opening statement that physical evidence on the scene will show that Clark was the man who robbed Applebee’s.

“He goes into the store with Miles Alcazar,” Baldridge said. “He comes running out, he slips and falls. He puts his hand on a box on the wall. We’ve got his fingerprint.”

He also said that Clark posted a selfie on his Facebook page after the robbery showing him in a Des Moines hotel room holding a wad of cash in his hands.

Baldridge also said witnesses will testify that a loaded magazine for a Glock 26 was found in that same hotel room,

Alcazar said in his testimony that he believed it was a Glock 26 that the suspect was using.

In Wilson’s opening statement, he said that his client is innocent, and that somebody else committed the robbery.

He said one of the prosecution’s witnesses is a gang member and that the gun used in the Applebee’s case “is evidence in another case.”

Wilson also said that testimony will show inconsistencies in the story.

“(Alcazar) cannot identify my client as the individual who robbed him,” Wilson said. “You’ll also hear that officers spoke with a number of individuals. They thought the robber was white.”

Clark is black.

Other witnesses who testified Tuesday included Steve Koch, manager of Electrical Engineering, whose surveillance cameras captured a man climbing over a fence and running away from the area, and Fort Dodge Police Detective Keaton Lunn, who examined two pay-as-you-go phones in the case.

Court will reconvene on Thursday due to concerns over a potential winter storm today.

Webster County District Court Judge Thomas Bice told jurors that many of the witnesses and court personnel are from out of town, and he doesn’t want anyone risking their lives to travel to Fort Dodge for the trial.

“We want people safe, and that includes you folks,” he said.

Bice added that he will try to have the trial wrapped up this week, but it may go into next week.