East-side Bend bank robbed

The Home Federal Bank on Greenwood Avenue was robbed Thursday afternoon, but police do not believe the robber is the same man who robbed five Bend banks between December 2011 and December 2013.

Lt. Nick Parker said surveillance video and witness statements suggest the suspect in Thursday’s robbery is older, slimmer and taller than the man suspected of robbing the downtown Home Federal branch three times and a south Bend Bank of the Cascades twice.

Police were called to the bank at the corner of Greenwood and Northeast Seventh Street at around 12:46 p.m. Thursday, shortly after the suspect had left the bank with an undisclosed sum of money, heading south on foot. Parker said no weapon was seen, and that he could not elaborate on the nature of the man’s demand for money.

A customer who had observed the robbery attempted to stop the suspect as he headed out of the bank, but was unable to do so.

Police are describing the suspect as roughly 50 years old, 6 feet 2 inches tall and slender. He has brown hair with graying sides, a white or graying beard, and at the time of the robbery, was wearing a green hooded sweatshirt, jeans, a green bandanna and sunglasses.

Bend police were joined in the search for the suspect by the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office, Parker said, with additional assistance from Oregon State Police, the Redmond Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

A Sheriff’s Office patrol dog, and a patrol dog and tracker dog with Bend police attempted to locate the suspect, spending more than an hour conducting an extensive search of the surrounding neighborhoods and nearby Juniper Park.

Police are asking anyone with information about the robbery to call the nonemergency dispatch number at 541-693-6911, and a reward is being offered for information that leads to the suspect’s arrest.

— Reporter: 541-383-0387, shammers@bendbulletin.com