Portland Bank Bandit Arrested in Tacoma
A bartender named Charles Wells was quietly taken into custody by local authorities and spirited away to Portland to face robbery charges.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Believed to be one of the men who held up the East Side bank in Portland some months ago and robbed it of $27,000, Charles Wells, a bartender, 32 years of age, was arrested late yesterday afternoon by the county authorities and quietly taken out of the city on the midnight train to Portland last night. The arrest was made at the instance of Chief Ahem of the Pinkerton Detective agency, and neither he nor Sheriff Tom Morris would make any statement regarding the case. Archie Leonard, deputy sheriff of Multnomah county, arrived in the city last evening, a few hours after the capture had been made, and accompanied the prisoner to Portland. Police officers here have been kept in the dark concerning the arrest. It is generally believed that the Portland officials expect to force a confession of the Portland bank robbery from their prisoner.
“Police officers here have been kept in the dark concerning the arrest.”
Bank robberies were major, high-stakes crimes in the early 20th century, often involving professional detectives like the Pinkertons who operated across state lines. Today's jurisdictional cooperation between law enforcement agencies remains the standard, though the era of 'quietly spirited away' by rail has given way to modern extradition processes.
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