A man who police believe used a handgun to rob stores and banks throughout the region, including a Walgreens and a bank in Palo Alto, was arrested in Milpitas March 20.

Hunter D. Thompson, 32, was arrested and charged with several counts of robbery after an investigation by Milpitas police linked him to a robbery of a Chase Bank. A follow-up investigation later led Palo Alto officers to the conclusion that the San Jose resident was also the man behind a December robbery in Walgreens on University Avenue and the robbery at Provident Credit Union in January.

In both of those cases, a man flashed a handgun and walked away from the scene. In the Walgreens incident, the man allegedly walked into the store on Dec. 3, asked a pharmacist for assistance, took her aside, showed her the handle of a gun in his messenger bag, told her he is addicted to opiates and demanded oxycontin, a pain reliever listed as a control substance in California. He walked out after the pharmacist gave him a bottle of oxycontin.

On Jan. 9, another robbery was reported in the Provident Credit Union at 2390 El Camino Real. The suspect, described as a man in flip flops, walked into the bank with a handgun, demanded money, and escaped on foot after being given an undisclosed amount of cash.

Thompson allegedly used a similar approach in the March 9 robbery in Milpitas. Police said the robber in this incident walked into the Chase Bank on North Milpitas Boulevard with a firearm and handed a bank teller a note demanding money. Police said he fled after the teller gave him cash,

Since that incident, Milpitas detectives worked with San Jose police to identify the suspect in the Chase Bank robbery. Last week, Milpitas detectives and San Jose police located and stopped Thompson in Emeryville. They also found in his car a revolver and an air gun, as well as methamphetamine and heroin.

Detectives later determined that he may also be behind bank robberies in San Francisco, Redwood City and Palo Alto and store robberies in Palo Alto, Santa Clara and Fremont. Since the arrest, the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office added two counts of robbery against him after detectives connected him to the earlier crimes, according to a statement from the Palo Alto Police Department.

Anyone with information about the suspect or either of the Palo Alto robberies with which he has been charged is asked to call Palo Alto police at (650) 329-2413. Anonymous tips can be e-mailed to paloalto@tipnow.org or sent via text message or voice mail to (650) 383-8984.