BB King Rifles through West TD neighborhood; spurs manhunt on Thursday, June 26

Jun 27

By Tom Peterson

The Dalles, Ore., June 27, 2025 — A 22-year-old man was arrested in west The Dalles on suspicion of drunken driving after crashing into a home around 5:30 p.m. Thursday, June 26.

But it was his passenger, who fled the vehicle with a rifle in hand, who triggered a response from about a dozen police officers and a brief manhunt that had neighbors dialing 911.

The Dalles Police Chief Tom Worthy said he heard over the radio that a man with a gun had fled the scene of the crash while he was driving to the site near Wahtonka High School on West 10th Street in The Dalles.

“It was super concerning,” he said this morning while reviewing the case. “We got two 911 calls about the man being seen with the gun, and it appeared super sketchy.”

Oregon State Police Troopers and Wasco County Sheriff’s Deputies assisted in the search for the man, while the driver of the vehicle, Francisco Rivera, 22, was detained.

Witnesses reported seeing officers exit their vehicles with rifles and begin a tactical search of the area.

Worthy said the man with the rifle, who was a local resident, ditched the gun and changed into a red shirt shortly before he was caught by police.

A short time later, officers recovered the weapon, which turned out to be a BB gun rifle.

“He was not talking very much,” Worthy said of the man who fled. “He had been drinking and he was trying to get out of there before the cops got there.”

“It all turned out to be not a big deal,” he said. “But we were very alarmed until we figured out it was all going to be OK. We did not have any information on the front end, and for all we knew it could have been a robbery or a kidnapping—you just don’t know.”

Worthy did not have the name of the man with the BB gun but said he was released after police determined there was no credible threat.

Rivera, however, was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving and reckless driving and lodged at NORCOR jail in the Port of The Dalles. He remained there Friday morning, according to NORCOR inmate records.