Centralia Police Chief Bob Berg said there is no reason to disbelieve Michael Lar’s claim that he was on the scene while SWAT teams swarmed only feet away.
“It looks like the area he chose to hide in was pretty good,” Berg said, adding that he’s forming a panel to analyze the response and follow-up to the attempted heist.
Berg said additional information will be released after a review of the incident is completed.
According to court papers:
Lar said he escaped through the same window he broke to gain access to the building. Two Centralia police officers responded to the scene about 6:42 a.m. Jan. 25 after an employee in the parking lot called to report suspicious circumstances.
Officer Neil Hoium said he met another employee at the south entrance of the credit union, and she mouthed the words “he’s got a gun” and motioned with her finger. Hoium grabbed the 28-year-old and pulled her away, and a suspect holding what appeared to be a firearm became visible.
As the woman ran from the suspect, Hoium fired two shots from a few feet away and retreated.
When backup arrived, officers were unsure where the suspect was. Thirty officers patrolled the scene, apparently while the suspect hid only feet away. Police initially thought he was inside the credit union. They threw a phone inside and attempted to contact the suspect through a radio frequency being broadcast inside the credit union, and detonated flash grenades.
Lar was arrested in Olympia just after 10 p.m., after a taxi driver and a hotel employee reported he was acting suspiciously and appeared to be injured.
That night, he spoke with Centralia police officers while being treated at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for bullet wounds to his hip and arm.
“You know, I have nothing against that cop, or I am not mad at that cop that shot me,” he told police. He added that he wished the credit union employee had heeded his demands.
Lar took the 28-year-old woman hostage when she arrived for work and at one point struck her over the head with the pellet gun he used. Officers initially thought he was carrying a semi-automatic firearm.
Lar faces robbery, kidnapping and assault charges and is being held at the Lewis County Jail in lieu of $1 million bail. Lewis County Prosecutor Michael Golden said he’s waiting for documentation of previous robberies by Lar, and that he could pursue a sentence of life in prison.
Lar also is being investigated in connection to similar robberies in Ellensburg and Ocean Shores. He has a long history of robberies in Washington and other states and allegedly admitted to six bank robberies in Washington and Arizona in 1996 after being captured in Las Vegas, according to Seattle Times articles published in 1996-97. Among them were a holdup at a First Community Bank branch in Tumwater.
He also admitted robbing an Olympia Bank branch March 13, 1996, along with two additional robberies in the Puget Sound area, according to Seattle Times archives.
Lar, who was 44 at the time, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 1997, according to reports. It’s not clear when or why he was released from custody.
He robbed the Tumwater bank three months after serving an 11-year sentence for a 1985 string of area bank robberies, and was also convicted of robbing a bank in Wyoming in 1982, reports state.
