Jewelry store owner duct-taped in Point Reyes armed robbery

Three armed robbers bound a jewelry store owner with duct tape in Point Reyes Station on Saturday morning before ransacking the store and fleeing, authorities said.

The brazen crime in the quaint Marin County community began around 11:15 a.m. when a man walked into the store at 1101 Shoreline Highway and asked the owner to look at some diamonds, said Lt. Scott Anderson of the Marin County Sheriff’s Office.

Two other men then entered the store, and one of them pointed a black semi-automatic handgun at the owner, forcing him into a back room, Anderson said. The robbers duct-taped the man’s hands and feet, took his cell phone and then stole jewelry from the store’s display cases and a safe.

About half and hour after the suspects fled, the store owner got the attention of a customer who freed him.

Authorities found evidence linked to the jewelry store in a garbage can at a Shell gas station at 834 Irwin St. in San Rafael. No suspects have been identified or arrested, and no one was seriously injured in the robbery.

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky