Portland police arrested a man Friday they say is connected to a string of armed hotel robberies, including one in Woodland in September.
Ernest Lee Dean, 40, was booked into the Multnomah County Jail on suspicion of first-degree and second-degree robbery, according to a news release from the Portland Police Bureau. Dean allegedly wielded a handgun and said he had a bomb while robbing several hotels in Oregon and Washington. In at least some of the robberies, he bound hotel employes while stealing money from the hotel, police said.
According to police, Dean robbed a Silver Cloud Inn in Portland and a La Quinta Inn in Wilsonville, Ore. Other robberies occurred in the Oregon cities of Gresham, Hood River, Cannon Beach, Albany and Newport, and one occurred in Woodland, police said.
The Woodland robbery was at the Quality Inn, 1380 Atlantic Ave., according to Woodland police. Shortly after 3 a.m. Sept. 14, a masked man tied up a Quality Inn clerk at gunpoint, said he had a bomb and took money from the cash register, police said at the time. The clerk was not hurt.
