Knife-wielding shoplifter captured in Lents

VIDEO: SEE SEARCH FOR SUSPECT | This suspect ran, but couldn’t outdistance a Portland Police Canine Team …

In this Lents neighborhood Walmart store, a shoplifter pulled a knife on security guards, but he didn’t make good his getaway.

Story and photos by David F. Ashton

For many Lents neighbors, the most convenient grocery store – open into the evening – I the Walmart on Holgate Boulevard in Eastport Plaza.

It appears that Thursday evening, June 2, a man was intent on picking up merchandise at the store, but not intending to pay for it. When a scuffle broke out with the store’s loss prevention staff, there was a call to 9-1-1.

Portland Police Bureau (PPB) East Precinct officers were dispatched to the store at 9:23 p.m. “Officers located the suspect nearby, but he ran away,” reported PPB Public Information Officer Sergeant Kevin Allen.

The officers in police cruisers were searching for the alleged thief in the vicinity of the Marshall High Campus, off SE 91st Place.

Apparently, the suspect ran north, through the parking lot of the multiplex theater, and then continued north on SE 86th Avenue, before running east on Rhone Street.

Perhaps he wasn’t familiar with the area, because SE Rhone Street dead-ends in the 9000 block. All of the homes are fenced at the end of that street.

At the eastern dead-end of SE Rhone Street, officers track down the fleeing suspected felon.

Officers set up a perimeter to contain the suspect; and, at the peak of the search, 20 officers were looking for him. “Officers found him after a track by PPB Canine Team,” Sergeant Allen informed. “A knife was seized as evidence.”

Why no booking photo? CLICK HERE to learn why you’re forbidden, by law, to see the face of 29-year-old Daniel Zamudio.

Officers arrested 29-year-old Daniel Zamudio, and booked him into the Multnomah County Detention Center (MCDC) on three counts of Robbery in the First Degree, Theft in the Second Degree, and County “Hold” and a Fugitive warrant.

At his arraignment, the judge dropped one of the Felony Robbery charges against Zamudio; however, he’s still being held in the MCDC in lieu of $180,000 combined bail.

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