Two arrests made in connection with Plaid Pantry robbery

James Johnson

Michael Patch
Tips provided by the public and follow-up work by McMinnville police detectives have led to two arrests in connection with last Monday morning's armed robbery of the Plaid Pantry convenience store.
Capt. Tim Symons identified the suspects as James Allen Johnson, 21, of Amity, and Michael William Patch, 36, of Yamhill.
Patch was charged with one count each of first-degree robbery, third-degree theft, menacing and unlawful use of a weapon. He is lodged in the Yamhill County Jail on a no-bail hold for violating his post-prison supervision.
Johnson was charged with one count each of first-degree robbery, third-degre theft and reckless driving. He is lodged on $157,500 bail.
They were each scheduled for arraignment Monday afternoon in circuit court.
"We appreciate the information we got and the detectives did a great job following up on all the leads," Symons said. "These don't always get solved."
Symons added, "We want to bring them to a good conclusion and hold people accountable for the crimes they've committed."
Police gave this account of the incident:
Patch allegedly entered the store, located at Northeast 19th and Baker streets, garbed all in black and confronted the clerk with a dark-colored handgun.
He was wearing gloves, a face mask and hooded sweatshirt with pants featuring a white patch on the left front and black patch on the right rear.
He took less than $100 in cash, which he stuffed into a jacket pocket as he headed to a waiting car on 19th Street. It was allegedly driven away westbound by Johnson.
The sheriff's office, Yamhill County Interagency Narcotics Team and Oregon State Police assisted McMinnville police in locating Johnson and Patch and taking them into custody.
Comments
Joel2828
Kudos to our law enforcement officers for a job well done. Now let's hope the courts have the courage to punish them. Somehow I have a feeling they will be right back out on the street in no time.
Joel2828
Would be nice to know more about how it was solved than just "Tips provided by the public and follow-up work by McMinnville police detectives have led to two arrests." What were the tips? Did someone recognize the video images? The patch on the pants? Jilted girlfriend rat 'em out? They drop a cigarette at the scene with their DNA on it? With a little more work this had the potential to be a great follow up story.
Lulu
Maybe it was "look for the tall dumb looking one."
Paul Daquilante
Joel2828 . . .
This story reported on the arrest of these two subjects based on information supplied by McMinnville police.
They were arraigned Monday afternoon in Yamhill County Circuit Court. Court records are now available, and a more detailed follow-up will be published in Friday's print edition, addressing how they were identified, taken into custody, etc.
Paul Daquilante/reporter
News-Register
Joel2828
Thanks Paul. Sounds like Friday's story will be interesting.
It seems like it's kind of rare for the police to catch the crooks in these kind of cases (unless they are dumb enough to go back and do it again a few more times)so I'm looking forward to hearing about how they caught them.