Three days after someone swiped a downtown security guard’s backpack with a loaded gun inside, police found the gun in the waistband of a man passed out in the street less than a mile away, according to police and prosecutors.
Police arrested 37-year-old Thaddeus Edward Wemple on allegations of first-degree theft, possession of a loaded firearm in a public place, unlawful possession of a gun and disorderly conduct.
The guard told police he had placed the backpack on an air conditioning unit at the historic U.S. National Bank building last Friday while he went to speak with another security guard and it was gone when he returned to retrieve it, according to police and downtown business representatives.
Portland police Officer Nathan Kirby-Glatkowski on Monday responded to a call about a man passed out and lying partly in the street and on a curb at Northwest Ninth Avenue and Glisan Street with a gun in his waistband, according to court and jail records.
The officer retrieved the gun and found it contained a loaded magazine of bullets. He ran the gun’s serial number and it came back as reported stolen by the security guard.
Wemple told the officer that he snatched the black backpack when he saw it unattended and found the gun inside, the affidavit said.
He told police he was homeless and “grabs things like backpacks when he sees them,” the affidavit said.
Wemple said he intentionally held onto the gun, according to the affidavit.
Wemple has a harassment conviction from 2006 in Sutherlin Municipal Court but no prior violent crime convictions, according to court records.
He was booked into the downtown jail Monday morning and then released on his own recognizance later that day. He then failed to appear in court the next day, according to court records.
A judge issued a warrant for his re-arrest on Tuesday.
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