Medford police seek gun-toting bar robber

By SARAH LEMON
Mail Tribune

Halloween patrons at a Medford tavern weren't alarmed to see a masked man with a gun enter the bar - until he fired a shot into the bar's ceiling.

Police are seeking a heavily built 6-foot-tall white man who threatened customers with a gun, took cash from the register at Pit Stop Tavern on West McAndrews Road and fled in a stolen vehicle Wednesday.

The man - wearing dark pants, a black sweatshirt with white lettering and a black ski mask - allegedly entered the tavern at 11:17 p.m. and yelled "This is zero hour" to the three customers and bartender. Witnesses said the .22-caliber semiautomatic handgun the suspect was carrying looked like "a big plastic toy," said Medford police Lt. Mike Moran. But the suspect fired a shot into the ceiling before demanding money from the till.

Pointing the gun, which was equipped with a laser sight, at the three patrons, the suspect demanded the keys to a Chevrolet Silverado, said Moran. One of the customers handed over the keys to his pickup parked outside. The suspect then herded the customers - two men and a woman - and the tavern's female bartender into the men's rest room, he said. No one was injured.

The suspect was last seen driving a white pickup westbound on Rossanley Drive from Sage Road. The truck, a 1992 Chevrolet Extra Cab with Oregon license plate VFK-085, had a large silver toolbox in the bed and a .308-caliber rifle on a rack in the rear window. Police have patrolled the Rossanley Drive area but are still looking for the vehicle, Moran said.

Moran said police believe the suspect is a local resident because witnesses said he seemed familiar with the bar and fled on Rossanley, an unlighted route with obscure connecting streets. Police said they hope someone saw the masked suspect either being dropped off or walking to the tavern before the incident.

"(Halloween) is an opportunity to slip around acting strangely, and it's not noticed," Moran said.

On Halloween 11 years ago, Medford police shot and killed 19-year-old Christopher Ray Jeffries of White City. Jeffries pointed an Uzi assault rifle at officers after he tried to rob a downtown US Bank branch wearing a Halloween costume and carrying a box with a fake bomb inside.

Reach reporter Sarah Lemon at 776-4487, or e-mail slemon@mailtribune.com. 

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