HERMISTON — The man Hermiston police arrested Friday, Dec. 17, following a bank robbery was out of federal prison on compassionate release.

Clifford Uptegrove, 58, of Yakima, remains in the Umatilla County Jail, Pendleton, on charges of first-degree robbery, first-degree theft and felony fleeing and unlawful use of a weapon. State court records show Circuit Judge Christopher Brauer on Dec. 20 set Uptegrove’s bail at $1 million.

The robbery occurred Dec. 17 just before 3 p.m. at Umpqua Bank, 450 N. First St., Hermiston, according to Hermiston police Chief Jason Edmiston.

He said preliminary information showed that moments after the robbery, a Umatilla County sheriff’s deputy spotted the suspect in a vehicle in the area of Northwest Geer Road west of Home Depot. That led to a vehicle chase on Theater Lane and eventually to Northeast Harley Lane. The deputy tried to stop the suspect, but he took off driving again.

Hermiston police took the lead in the chase, Edmiston said, and police video shows the suspect pulled over, and to prevent him from fleeing again, a Hermiston officer in a pickup parked against the driver’s door and pinned him in.

“They they took him out at gunpoint,” Edmiston said.

While no one was injured in the robbery, according to Edmiston, it was an “incredibly traumatic situation for the employees at the bank.”

Records show Uptegrove has a history of robbing banks.

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington in 2005 issued a press release about Uptegrove, then 41, going to federal prison for more than 20 years plus five years probation after he pleaded guilty to armed bank robbery and using a firearm during a crime of violence.

According to the press release, police caught Uptegrove in March 2004 after a robbery at the Riverview Community Bank in Hazel Dell, Washington, and during questioning he admitted to nine robberies of credit unions from 2001-04, including twice hitting the Kennewick Community Federal Credit Union, Kennewick, and robbing the Oregon Central Credit Union in Portland three times.

Federal court records show Uptegrove was serving time at the Federal Correctional Institution, Otisville, a medium-security prison near Otisville, New York, and had a release date of March 17, 2022. But Uptegrove in 2020 sought compassionate release.

Uptegrove suffered from asthma, according to court documents, and was at an increased risk of developing COVID-19.

According to the order for his release, the court found Uptegrove took “commendable strides to grow and change while in prison, completing a number of self-help and educational programs in anticipation of his eventual release and maintaining a clean disciplinary record for the last nine-plus years.”

The court also ordered him to live with his sister in Yakima, where he could “rehabilitate in a smaller community with family nearby, while offering his sister, who is struggling with lymphoma, the help she needs.”

U.S. Senior District Judge Marsha J. Pechman signed the release order Nov. 17, 2020, freeing Uptegrove from prison 14 days after and immediately placing him under supervised release.

Edmiston said as far as the Hermiston robbery goes, police were planning on obtaining a search warrant for the vehicle Uptegrove drove to look for money from the bank and the gun he may have used.

Uptegrove next court hearing is Dec. 28 at 8:15 a.m.