The elderly woman was in the Macy’s parking garage in downtown Salem when a man approached her with a hammer in hand. 

As the woman screamed and ran toward the store, a security guard tried to confront her attacker. The man then swung his hammer at the guard and fled, according to the Marion County District Attorney’s Office. The incident took place on April 10, 2023.

The assailant, it turned out, had just taken the bus downtown after escaping from a prison work crew.

Marion County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Hart on Sept. 3 found Joe L. Smallwood-Sain, 42, of Portland, guilty of second-degree robbery and two counts of unlawful use of a weapon. Smallwood-Sain also pleaded guilty that same day to second-degree escape. 

He was acquitted of first-degree robbery. The judge decided the verdict because Smallwood-Sain voluntarily gave up his right to a jury trial.

Hart sentenced him on Oct. 15 to nearly six years in prison. He is not eligible for early release and was also sentenced to three years of post-prison supervision.

The district attorney’s office provided an account of the episode in a news release Monday afternoon.

In April 2023 Smallwood-Sain was serving a sentence for first-degree theft at Santiam Correctional Facility in Salem and serving on a prison work crew when he escaped to find drugs at a nearby trailer park.

He took a bus downtown and went to a parking garage connected to the Macy’s at Salem Center Mall. He then approached the 84-year-old woman with a hammer, saying, “gimme your keys.”

Travis Roop, a new security guard at Macy’s, saw the incident and heard the woman screaming as she ran toward the store entrance  

He found Smallwood-Sain inside the woman’s vehicle and drove his own vehicle behind it, blocking the attacker in a parking space. Smallwood-Sain then fled on foot toward the garage exit, and when Roop caught up to him he saw the hammer in his hand. 

Smallwood-Sain swung the hammer at Roop before fleeing and taking a bus to east Salem.

The Salem Police found and arrested Smallwood-Sain that same day as he was walking on Lancaster Drive.

Smallwood-Sain at the time had already been arrested 65 times and convicted of crimes including first degree burglary and first-degree child neglect.

A Marion County grand jury originally indicted him four days after the attack on charges of unlawful use of a weapon and second-degree escape.

Smallwood-Sain was released from the Marion County Jail five months later in September 2023. 

He went on to be charged in three separate cases the following year in Washington County with crimes including possession of methamphetamine, theft, trespassing and identity theft. Those charges are still pending, according to court records.

He was arrested again this past July after being charged with robbery in connection with the Salem parking garage attack.

Contact reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian: [email protected] or 503-929-3053.

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