By Cathy Siegner
Pamplin Media Group, Jul 7, 2011
A registered sex offender believed to be trying to impersonate a woman was arrested Friday afternoon, July 1, after allegedly interacting with children in the girl's locker room and a hot tub at a Milwaukie aquatic center.
Thomas Lee Benson of Gresham, 39, was pursued from the center at 7300 S.E. Harmony Road, to a parking lot at the Clackamas Town Center by a Portland man who happened to be at the center supervising a field trip of about 50 fourth-graders.
Tayo Cotton, 26, who works with a nonprofit youth assistance group in North Portland, told Clackamas County Sheriff's Office deputies that he and a co-worker saw a suspicious-looking individual wearing a bikini and makeup going in and out of the girl's locker room.
"You could tell he was wearing makeup. He tried to make himself look really feminine," Cotton recalled.
Cotton said he approached and talked to the person, who didn't respond or make eye contact. Soon afterward, after apparently changing into a tank top and shorts in the men's locker room, the suspect quickly left the center and, realizing he was being pursued, began running down the street. After a 15-minute chase, the two finally ended up in the nearby Clackamas Town Center parking lot.
Cotton said he saw the suspect attempt to open several car doors as people drove by in the Sears parking lot and finally reach through an open rear window and open the door of a car being operated by an unsuspecting woman slowly driving by.
At that point, Cotton said he grabbed the person, pulled him away from the vehicle and held him down on the ground. Sheriff's office deputies and mall security officers then arrived and took the suspect into custody.
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