The Register-Guard

NORTH BEND — Call it bold, call it stupid.

Whatever you want to call Robert Lloyd Finder’s alleged burglary of the North Bend Police Station last week, the town’s police chief said it happened. The burglar allegedly made off with two department-issue Tasers and a radio.

Oh, and a police cruiser.

“I’m so upset about it, I can’t even find any humor in it,” said Police Chief Steve Scibelli. “It’s pretty embarrassing.”

Finder, 26, faces just about every charge the police could think up, including burglary, possession of burglary tools, theft, unlawful use of a motor vehicle, unlawful entry into a motor vehicle, criminal mischief, criminal trespass, tampering with physical evidence and reckless driving, after he allegedly committed a brazen raid on the police station in downtown North Bend last Wednesday.

All the officers had left a section of the building to respond to an assault call, leaving only police dispatchers in a separate part of the station, Scibelli said. Finder later told the police he was walking near the station and noticed most of the police cars were gone, Scibelli said, so he did some further investigation and decided to try breaking in.

“He just said he thought he’d try it,” Scibelli said. “See if he could pull this off. High risk, low reward.”

The building was remodeled recently, Scibelli said, but the outer doors are difficult to lock properly, so that’s probably how the suspect got inside.

Once through the outer perimeter, the suspect encountered a door that was locked securely, but that didn’t stop him, Scibelli said, he simply kicked it in.

“He said he had to kick it at least 10 times to get it to open,” the chief said.

Inside, the suspect found keys to a Crown Victoria patrol car, Scibelli said. Finder swiped a couple of Tasers and took off in the stolen rig, driving it to Lakeside, where he parked it on some railroad tracks inside a tunnel, according to the chief.

Finder then tried selling the Tasers, which is how the police caught up with him the next day, Scibelli said. He’d passed it off to one person, who tried to sell the stun guns to a source who tipped off the police.

Scibelli said the police have revamped some internal procedures and moved some things around so that the side of the building that was burglarized won’t contain things that can be stolen.

“We were dumbfounded,” Scibelli said. “Absolutely amazed that someone would have the nerve to do this.”