At approximately 6 a.m. July 29 a manager at the Safeway store in Lincoln City called to report a man who had first shoplifted and then returned to the store wielding two machetes. The man threatened the manager with the weapons. The suspect fled during the police response, leaving behind several bags.
A Lincoln City police officer seized the bags and later served a search warrant to obtain identifying information from inside it. Information from that search, along with surveillance video from within the Safeway, led to the identification of the man as Joseph D. Sanders, 41, a transient with arrest warrants out of several states.
On Aug. 2, a Lincoln City business owner called police when he observed a man smoking what he suspected of being drugs on his restaurant’s property. The men fled as police responded but was located nearby a short time later. He first provided a false name but was quickly identified as Sanders. He had bolt cutters, 10 knives, and a loaded flare gun in his possession.
Sanders was lodged at the Lincoln County Jail on charges of Robbery in the First Degree, Unlawful Use of a Weapon, Menacing, Theft in the Third Degree, and cited for Possession of Methamphetamine.