A bicyclist suspected of robbing a Great Falls casino at gunpoint early Tuesday died minutes after the holdup when a squad car responding to the scene struck him.

Robert Lawrence Thrash, 39, was pedaling west out of 7th Alley North around 12:54 a.m. when he collided with a police car driven north on 9th Street North.

Officer Michael Badgley was driving: He and three other Great Falls squad cars were responding to a call three minutes earlier from Nickel Nats casino, 1425 8th Ave. N. Thrash of Great Falls, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Joy Burkstrand, a bartender at the casino, said that shortly before 1 a.m. Tuesday a man wearing a green army jacket and blue ski mask entered Nickel Nats. Only Burkstrand's friend, Amber Mort, was in the casino at the time.

It was snowing and Burkstrand figured the man was bundled up for the cold weather. She greeted him like every other customer, she said. But when he rounded the corner, she saw he was holding a rifle with a sawed off barrel.

"After that, all I saw was the gun," Burkstrand said. The man spoke softly and demanded money, she said. "I told him, 'You don't want to do this. You are on camera,'" she recalled. Burkstrand obeyed the man's demand when he became irritated. The robber fled on foot with about $500 as Burkstrand dialed 9-1-1.