Man arrested downtown after reported robbery at Riverfront Park

Police arrested a man they believed robbed an out-of-town visitor Sunday morning at Riverfront Park, according to court documents filed in Spokane County Superior Court on Monday.

Officers located the victim bleeding from the nose and stumbling near the intersection of Main Avenue and Wall Street downtown.

The victim told police he was waiting for a bus to Indiana and was looking at the Spokane Falls near the Washington Water Power Building at about 11:30 a.m. when a man approached him and punched him in the nose with a closed fist and demanded he empty his pockets, the court document said.

The man continued to punch him in the body while another man, identified as Kevin P. Bauerle, assisted in collecting the items, the victim told police.

The victim told police he was robbed of $82, a pack of cigarettes and two baseball hats. The men who robbed him ran southbound on Stevens Street from Riverfront Park, the man said.

Police located Bauerle, 40, near Second Avenue and Wall Street. Bauerle told police that he was passing through Riverfront Park when he helped get someone else’s property back and was given the two hats as a gift, the affidavit said. Bauerle initially gave police a different name and date of birth from his own, but his identity was revealed through the police department’s tattoo database.

He was arrested on suspicion of first-degree robbery, making false statements, resisting arrest and obstructing a law enforcement officer.

The other robber was not found.