Police nab suspect in kidnapping, robbery

Oak Harbor police caught a man Friday who was wanted on a warrant related to an alleged kidnapping and robbery.

Oak Harbor police caught a man Friday who was wanted on a warrant related to an alleged kidnapping and robbery.

Police Chief Ed Green said the tip came in from someone who saw on social media that Oscar Sampedro, 34, was wanted on an arrest warrant. The police considered him “armed and dangerous.”

The tipster led officers to an Oak Harbor house. The cops simply knocked on the door, discovered Sampedro was inside and arrested him without incident, Green said.

Prosecutors charged Sampedro in Island County Superior Court earlier this month with first-degree degree robbery and second-degree kidnapping.

He made his preliminary appearance in court Tuesday.

The 29-year-old alleged victim reported that he met Sampedro and two younger men at the Parkwood Manor trailer park in the early morning of Jan. 31.

The man agreed to go for a ride with Oscar, later identified as Sampedro, and two others in a black SUV that Sampedro was driving. Sampedro allegedly pulled out a gun and pointed it at the victim, telling him he had “bad news” for him, according to the police report written by Detective Mike Bailey.

The man sitting next to the victim bound his hands with zip ties. The assailants made him get out of the vehicle and put his hands on the roof; they stole his backpack, wallet, jacket, shoes and money, the report states.

The men tried to cut the restraints by burning them with a lighter but stopped after they burned the victim. They twisted off the zip ties with a pliers, told the man to leave town and drove off, Bailey wrote.

Instead, he walked to his father’s house and called 911.

Sampedro is known by many aliases, including Diablo, Little Smiley, Zoom Sampedro, Smiley, Smiley X and Oscar Sanchez, according to police.