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Portland police arrested a 32-year-old man Monday night in connection with a robbery at a Southeast Portland U.S. Bank branch.
(The Oregonian/File)
A man accused of robbing a bank in Southeast Portland by passing a threatening note to a teller on Monday told investigators after his arrest that he was having difficulty controlling a heroin addiction, according to federal court records.
Dennis C. McDonald was arrested shortly after the Monday bank robbery at the U.S. Bank at 10220 S.E. Washington St.
He was booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center about 7 p.m. Monday. McDonald was ordered detained as a flight risk and danger to the community pending trial during a hearing in federal court Tuesday.
"Dennis C. McDonald told me he had learned from others in prison about what to ask when conducting a robbery and decided to use that information to assist himself and his situation,'' Portland police detective Darren Posey wrote in a federal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Portland Tuesday.
Dennis C. McDonald, 32
McDonald said after he passed the note and took off with cash, he crossed the street to his motorcycle.
But the motorcycle wouldn't start, McDonald told investigators, according to the court document.
So McDonald and his girlfriend, who was standing by waiting, left the bike in a lot and walked off, according to the federal complaint.
Police found McDonald and his girlfriend walking in a park behind Floyd Light Middle School in the area of Southeast 108th Ave. and Washington Street. Officers found their clothing suspicious for 80-degree temperatures. Police said they noticed the suspect in the park wearing a motorcycle helmet and jacket, with light-colored blue jeans and black-colored boots but no motorcycle nearby.
Police searched McDonald's backpack and recovered $940 in cash, a crumpled-up paper that contained the demand note presented to a teller.
It read, "Give me all the cash in the till! No marked bills, no transmitters, no dye packs, I will kill everybody!"
Around the time of the bank robbery, another Portland police detective happened to drive through the south parking lot of the bank. Detective Maury Mudrick told investigators he saw a man dressed in a black vest, gray long-sleeved shirt, light blue jeans with dark hair and wearing sunglasses.
Mudrick, who was headed to another call, told investigators that the man appeared suspicious, and ran from the bank's north side across the street to a parking lot behind a restaurant.
Once Mudrick heard the bank robbery call dispatched over his police radio a short time later, he contacted other officers and relayed the description of the suspicious man he saw running from the bank, the federal complaint says.
Police said McDonald matched the video surveillance images from the bank.
--Maxine Bernstein