A Dowagiac man suspected of robbing the city’s Marathon gas station at gunpoint Monday night is now in police custody

Christopher Baptiste Rhodes, 30, was charged with two counts of armed robbery, a count of larceny in a building, a count of felon in possession of a firearm and four counts of felony firearms during his arraignment hearing before District Court Judge Stacey Rentfrow Friday afternoon. He is currently being held in Cass County Jail on $500,000 bond.

According to police, Rhodes is suspected of robbing the Marathon gas station, located at 801 Spruce St. in the city, at 10:41 p.m. Monday. Witnesses said that a man had walked into the store, pulled out a gun and demanded money from the station’s cash register, then took an undisclosed amount of money from the drawer as well as the wallet from a customer before fleeing the premises eastbound on foot.

Dowagiac officers who responded to the incident attempted to track down the suspect with the assistance of a Cass County Sheriff’s Office K-9, though police were unsuccessful in tracking him down that night.

In the days that followed, officers with the Dowagiac department began following up on leads, eventually developing Rhodes, who was on parole at the time for an armed robbery conviction in 2005, as a person of interest in the case, said Director of Public Safety Steve Grinnewald.

“We received some information from the public that led us to identify him [Rhodes] as a possible suspect,” Grinnewald said.

Contacting the Michigan Department of Corrections for assistance, Dowagiac officers searched the apartment in Dowagiac Rhodes was registered as living at with the MDOC but were unable to locate the man there Wednesday, Grinnewald said. However, a parole officer was able to track down Rhodes to a residence he was staying at in Coloma, with the MDOC and Coloma Township Police locating both the suspect and evidence from the store robbery at the location.

Officers with the Dowagiac Police later arrived on the scene, taking the man into custody.

Dowagiac detectives are currently working with law enforcement agents from South Haven to determine if Rhodes was responsible for a similar armed robbery of a convenience store in that city Monday, which occurred nearly an hour earlier to the theft in Dowagiac.

“The circumstances were very similar,” Grinnewald said. “[Rhodes] also fits the description of the suspect in that case as well.”

The Dowagiac police chief also praised the work of his officers in this case.

“We did not have very much too go off of at first, but within a couple of days we were able to get a suspect in custody,” Grinnewald said. “It took a lot of excellent police work and some teamwork between us and other local agencies, and because of that we got a potentially dangerous individual off the streets.”