70-year-old sex offender arrested for indecent exposure in store parking lot

A sex offender was arrested Monday after multiple complaints by store customers that he was masturbating in a store parking lot.

Spokane Police officers responded to a store on the 9700 block of Newport Highway at about noon after store employees reported multiple complaints of a man watching them from his car.

The man was sitting in a white Ford F-150 backed into a parking stall, a police statement said. Multiple female customers complained over an hour that the driver was “checking them out.”

When police arrived they saw the man, who based on his movements appeared to be touching himself, watching a woman walk out to her minivan with her child.

Police approached the car and immediately noticed the man’s pants zipper was undone and his genitalia was exposed.

The man, a 70-year-old, told police his genitals were exposed because “he needed to go to the bathroom,” according to an SPD statement.

Surveillance video from the store showed the man had parked in the same general area the day before and sat in his truck for more than an hour before leaving. He never exited his car or went into the store, police said.

The man was arrested for felony indecent exposure. He has multiple prior convictions for sex offenses and is described by police as an “armed career criminal.”