Renton man arrested in Marysville holdup

MARYSVILLE — A Renton man has been arrested in connection with a Feb. 6 robbery that involved the gunman who reportedly tried to pass himself off as a cop, Marysville police said Saturday.

The man, 27, was working for a bail bonding company and apparently came to Marysville trying to track down somebody who had skipped bail, Marysville police Cmdr. Robb Lamoureux said.

Instead, he is suspected of detaining three people at gunpoint and letting them go after patting them down and taking a large amount of cash.

The man was tracked down after a Marysville police crime analyst pored over cellphone call logs and learned the suspect’s name, Lamoureux said.

Prior to the robbery, he had called a woman looking for the person who had jumped bail. The woman later showed up in a Marysville parking lot planning to buy a food stamp EBT card from one of the robbery victims.

Marysville police were called to the scene after a passerby reported somebody being held at gunpoint. Officers arrived to find two men lined up in front of a shed, doing their best not to move.

They told officers that somebody they believed was a cop had told them to stand in front of the shed. They said they had come to the parking lot to sell the food stamp card but instead were accosted by a man who identified himself as being part of a “task force.”

Witnesses told police the suspect was wearing what appeared to be a bullet-proof vest with the word SWAT on it. There was a badge on his hip.

The Marysville crime analyst not only learned the man’s identity but detectives determined he was a close match to a police sketch that had been prepared after interviewing the robbery victims, Lamoureux said.

The man was arrested Friday as he drove from his home. He was booked into the Snohomish County Jail for investigation of three counts of first-degree robbery, despite denying involvement, Lamoureux said.