By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – He may have used a bicycle for a getaway vehicle but the man arrested yesterday may have quite a bit of experience holding up banks.
Prosecutors say it appears Larry G. Bailey has three, maybe four, federal convictions for bank robbery, going all the way back to 1988 in Washington and Kansas.
Bailey, 52, is accused of being the man who walked into Chase Bank in Chehalis yesterday, implied to the manager he had a gun as he reached into his coat pocket and got into the bank’s vault where he was handed $36,000 to $40,000 cash.
Bailey was apprehended about 45 minutes later less than a mile from the bank, leaving his BMX-style bicycle and scaling one fence and nearly a second one ending up on the shoulder of Interstate 5 at the West Street overpass.
Police say Bailey just arrived in the area few months ago, and shows an address on the 1500 block of Bishop Road.
His federal probation officer informed prosecutors they would be placing a detainer on him, as he is in violation of his probation, according to court documents.
He was charged in Lewis County Superior Court today with first-degree robbery and possession of methamphetamine.
Prosecutors planned to ask a judge to hold Bailey on $1 million bail, given no apparent ties to the community and his history.
But he refused to be brought up from the jail.
A corrections officer told the judge this afternoon that Bailey was suicidal and not agreeing to talk to anyone.
Judge Nelson Hunt said he didn’t like to do it, but Bailey would have to be forced to come to the court room tomorrow afternoon.
“Tomorrow, if he won’t come up, we’ll need to have him brought up in the chair,” Hunt said.
The chair, according to both lawyers in the courtroom, is something they haven’t themselves seen used in Lewis County, but is something a defendant can be restrained in and moved in.
According to charging documents, Bailey made no secret of his past.
After his arrest, he was taken to see a doctor for injuries prior to being booked.
Firefighters said he hurt his forehead when he crashed his bicycle. Charging documents mention he ran through barbed wire while trying to evade authorities.
While being treated, Bailey told officers this was his fourth strike, although one of them was before the new law took effect, but he knew he would be going away forever, charging documents state.
He talked about how he had done time in prison, and how this was the first time he’d gotten a teller to take him inside the vault, the documents state.
“Bailey spoke about methamphetamine and how it was the devil,” the documents state.
•••
Meanwhile, for background, read “Thirty-six thousand dollars retrieved from accused bicycle bandit after robbery” from Tuesday January 27, 2015 at 10:40 p.m., here [1]