OFF PAGE ONE
Saturday, February 19, 2022
Robbery:
Continued from Page A1
Instead, she said, he got in
his car, then took off .
Amanda West said the
police arrived and she pointed
toward the escaping car.
As the police gave chase,
the Wests said they noticed
several $100 bills lying on
the pavement and blowing in
the wind. At fi rst, they said,
they thought it was the cash
Jim West had tossed, so they
collected it.
It was not until later, when
they learned of the bank
robbery, they realized the
money belonged to the bank.
Following their ordeal,
they said, a Stanfi eld police
offi cer interviewed them for
30 minutes in a parking lot.
They turned in the stolen
money at that time, they said.
Hermiston Police Chief
Jason Edmiston confi rmed
the Wests were held up
following the bank robbery.
The aftermath
“We don’t have any
closure, and it was so trau-
matic,” Amanda West
said. “Weeks went by, and
we weren’t contacted by
anyone.”
She added this seems
especially odd, considering
they viewed the man without
a mask, following the bank
robbery.
The suspect, while inside
the bank, was wearing a
mask, she said. Also, she
said, she and her husband
were the ones who pointed to
the man and his car as he was
leaving the scene.
They learned through
media reports of the arrest
of Clifford Uptegrove, 58,
of Yakima. He was accused
of robbing the bank. He was
initially held in the Umatilla
County Jail, Pendleton,
on charges of first-degree
robbery, first-degree theft
and felony fl eeing and unlaw-
ful use of a weapon. His bail
was set at $1 million.
They also discovered
the suspect previously had
pleaded guilty to an armed
bank robbery charge. He
had been serving time at the
Federal Correctional Institu-
tion, Otisville, a medium-se-
curity prison near Otisville,
New York. He had a release
date of March 17, 2022, but
was released on compassion-
ate release due to asthma and
being at an increased risk of
developing COVID-19.
Learning of the suspect’s
past, and refl ecting on their
brush with death, the Wests
said they remain aff ected.
“We can’t go into a
crowded building,” Amanda
West said. “It’s hard for us to
park in a parking lot. I can’t
go into a convenience store
without feeling scared.”
The Wests were so upset
by their experience, they
could not celebrate the
Christmas season like they
would have otherwise, they
said. Gatherings were just too
painful.
“Multiple times, we pulled
up to places we intended to
go, but we decided not to go
because it was just too scary
for us.”
Their situation was made
worse, Amanda West said,
after a call from Umatilla
County District Attorney
Dan Primus. She said he told
her Uptegrove would not face
any charges related to holding
the Wests up at gunpoint.
“He is being prosecuted
for robbing a bank, but it’s
the federal government will
be the ones prosecuting him
for that,” she said. “He’s not
being prosecuted for what
he’s doing to us.”
She added, “If it’s going
to be before a judge in a few
years, I want the judge to
know that he didn’t just rob
a bank. He also held us at
gunpoint.”
Answers from the
district attorney
Primus explained why he
has not yet brought charges
related to the attempted
carjacking.
“Committing this new
crime, it is again a federal
case in which he is going to
have substantial time within
the federal system as a result
of that,” Primus said.
He added the alleged
crimes involved multiple
jurisdictions, with the major
jurisdiction being with the
federal government.
“I have been in commu-
nication with the U.S. Attor-
ney’s Office to determine
whether or not that was
going to stay with them, or if
it would come to our offi ce,”
Primus said. “We’re working
on that, and we will make a
decision.”
Key to a resolution of the
charges is the question of
whether the bank robbery
and action against Amanda
and Jim West are one contin-
uous course of conduct or
separate events. Once this
is decided, Primus said his
office may well prosecute
Uptegrove.
“Just because a case hasn’t
been charged yet doesn’t
mean it will not be charged,”
he said.
He added the state has
three years to fi le the charges
of armed robbery, so his
offi ce has time to make that
decision.
Victims search
for peace
With questions still unan-
swered, and the incident
still fresh in their minds,
the Wests report a mix of
emotions. Amanda West said
she has even felt gratitude to
the man who held her and her
husband up at gunpoint. For
all of the mental anguish he
has imposed on them, he did
not kill her or her husband.
He could have, she stated, but
he did not.
As time has passed, they
both said their mental state
has improved, though they
still are processing the event.
They said they want the man
to stay in prison and not be
able to do to others what he
did to them.
Uptegrove is in custody in
Multnomah County Deten-
tion Center, Portland. The
Multnomah County Sher-
iff ’s website states Uptegrove
was booked into the facility
on Dec. 29.
The Wests expressed their
desire to feel normal again,
like they did before this
ordeal. But getting over this,
Amanda West said, is going
to take a while.
We’re closing our doors
FOREVER!
After serving Pendleton
for 20 years, it is
time to retire.
All jewelry, watches, clocks and
giftware drastically reduced for
immediate sale
EVERYTHING MUST GO !
including cases, furniture, displays,
even some tools and equipment
All sales are final!
Hurry in for great prices
before they're gone!
East Oregonian
A9
SHIP:
Continued from Page A1
a diverse employment base.
“We don’t necessary just
want to have a parcel that’s
200 acres that can accom-
modate one really large
development,” he said.
“This helps accommodate
the machine shops, the elec-
tricians, the plumbers, those
types of operations that need
an acre for a laydown yard
and equipment.”
The city’s interest in a
diverse set of employers is
due to a hard lesson, Morgan
said.
The closure of Hermis-
ton Foods in 2017 resulted in
the loss of about 200 perma-
nent, full-time jobs. At the
same time, Union Pacific
scaled down some of its
machine shop operations.
Though Morgan said large
employers are valued and
are important, it is import-
ant for Hermiston to “not
be beholden to one, single,
large employer.”
Attracting business
Morgan agreed his situ-
ation with SHIP is some-
thing akin to the plot of the
1989 classic baseball movie
“Field of Dreams.” In the
Masks:
Continued from Page A1
told the New York Times on
Feb. 17. “We’re not in denial
of the hell that has been the
last two years. This is not
like World War II, where we
can have a ticker-tape parade
and announce the end.”
OHSU’s forecast showed
a strong trend toward signifi -
cantly lower infections,
hospitalizations and eventu-
ally, deaths.
OHSU said Oregon
masking rates have re -
mained among the highest
in the nation, with surveys
showing roughly 80% of
residents have continued to
cover up indoors.
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Utility conduits sit along East Cook Avenue on Wednesday,
Feb. 16, 2022, in the South Hermiston Industrial Park in
Hermiston.
fi lm, a farmer builds a base-
ball fi eld in the middle of
his crop. A ghostly voice
tells the character that if he
creates the ball fi eld, people
will come.
Likewise, the city has
placed infrastructure and is
looking for businesses to fi ll
the space.
Sometimes, he said,
communication with inter-
ested businesses is frustrat-
ing. Companies learn of the
area and express interest, he
said. Then, they sometimes
ask to see the city’s top vacant
buildings. When he tells
them there are not any vacant
buildings, they lose their
excitement for Hermiston.
He said the best the
city can off er now is space
with electricity, roads and
plumbing. SHIP gives busi-
nesses area for develop-
ment. Morgan called this
“economic gardening.”
“Even though there isn’t
an existing building ready
for somebody to come in,
the ground is ready for
someone to come in,” he
said. “They can throw up
a building pretty darned
quick.”
Morgan said he does
not expect SHIP to fi ll up
immediately. Rather, he
explained, it is something
that will bring in new devel-
opments over several years.
Oregon was one of the
last states to drop outdoor
mask mandates when
Brown lifted the restriction
in November.
Graven said the fore-
cast was starting to show
an erosion of state resi-
dents’ sustained high level
of not gathering indoors
with people outside of their
households.
“Those rates have begun
to tick up,” the OHSU state-
ment that accompanied the
forecast said.
Graven cited Denmark
as an example of where
omicron seemed on the way
out, only to rebound because
of the public getting ahead of
pandemic policies.
“They gave up on public
health measures at what
they thought was the peak
— and it turned out not to be
the peak and they had even
more people hospitalized,”
Graven said.
The highly contagious
omicron variant was first
confirmed in Oregon on
Dec. 14.
The average peak of
omicron in the 50 states was
about a third higher than the
per-capita peak in Oregon.
If Oregon had the national
average of cases, the number
of people with COVID-19 in
state hospitals would have
likely hit 1,540.
The actual peak of 1,130
on Jan. 27 fell just short of
the pandemic hospital record
of 1,178 on Sept. 1, 2021, the
top of the severity of the
delta variant wave.
Adult, child
child & & family
family therapy
therapy
* * Adult,
* Mental health & crisis services
* Psychiatric evaluation & treatment
595 NW 11 th St., Hermiston, OR
541-567-2536
331 SE 2 nd St., Pendleton, OR
541-276-6207
299 N. Columbia
Milton Freewater, OR
541-276-6207
Get Help, Understanding, & Hope
* Chemical dependency & substance
abuse treatment
435 E. Newport, Hermiston, OR
541-564-9390
211 SW 1 st St., Pendleton, OR
541-278-6330
707 E. Broadway Ave., Milton Freewater, OR
541-278-6288