By John Krupa
Arkansas Democrat Gazette
HOGDEN, Okla. — Escaped inmates from an eastern Oklahoma prison often flee to Arkansas because the jail’s search team halts its manhunts at the state line, an Arkansas border sheriff said.
Since 2000, the Jim E. Hamilton Correctional Center in Hodgen, Okla., has had 17 escapes. The minimum-security prison has no fences and sits 10 miles from Polk County.
While prison officials keep no records of convicts’ escape paths, Polk County Sheriff Mike Oglesby said at least half who escape cross into his rural county before capture.
Prison officials confirmed in interviews that it’s happened multiple times.
Oglesby, sheriff for 20 years, said his rural department lacks the resources to hunt down convicts without help.
But the prison’s search team won’t cross the border because it lacks authority to make arrests outside Oklahoma.
Prison authorities likely would have caught escaped convict Bradley Keith within a few hours of his Jan. 27 flight if the Oklahoma search team could have followed his trail across the border, Oglesby said. Instead, Keith remained free until turning himself in to authorities in Oklahoma City on Feb. 1.
Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel investigated the idea of giving the prison’s search teams the authority to cross the line. A spokesman said drafting such a compact is a legal possibility.
Now, Oklahoma Department of Corrections officials need to get on board, Oglesby said.
“This is not my prisoner. They are the ones who let him escape,” he said. “It should be their responsibility to help us when the prison is that close to the state line and these guys always run into Arkansas.”
The state-run Hamilton prison opened in 1969 in rural LeFlore County, hidden away in the forests of the Ouachita Mountains. The facility sits near U. S. 270 and tracks of the Kansas City Southern Railway, which also run through Polk County and the county seat at Mena. The jail houses 734 inmates, said Brenda Rowton, assistant to Warden Bruce Howard.
Besides the guards, Rowton said, there’s little to physically prevent inmates from escaping. She said nearly all Hamilton inmates have shown good behavior and are scheduled for release in less than 20 years. Most are due out much earlier than that.
Jerry Massie, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, said the threat of being shipped to a highersecurity prison — and accruing between two and seven years of additional time — keeps most inmates at Hamilton behind bars.
But escapes do happen.
Hamilton has had at least one escape every year since 2004. Thirteen prisoners escaped the prison’s grounds in 2005 and 2006 alone. Convict Michael Pruitt fled to Arkansas less than two months before Keith’s departure in late January.
Those numbers aren’t alarming for a minimum-security prison, Massie said.
Oglesby couldn’t give exact figures, but he said he’s being conservative by saying that at least half of the escapees since 2000 fled to Arkansas initially.
But the prison officials don’t track this data. They only track where the inmates are caught.
Twelve of the 17 who escaped since 2000 were caught in Oklahoma, according to the prison.
The prison search team caught many of these escapees the same day as their attempt and only a few miles from the prison.
Authorities caught one convict in Florida, one in Texas and one in Scott County in Arkansas. Two are still at large, according to the prison.
Just because few of the convicts are caught in Arkansas doesn’t mean they don’t pass through the Natural State before their arrest, Oglesby said. Fugitives make for Arkansas because it’s close and they know the prison’s search team — which employs a pack of tracking dogs — won’t follow them across the border, he said. His 10-man department has no dog team of its own.
The nearest one in Arkansas is two hours away at the Arkansas Department of Correction Ouachita River Unit in Malvern. Arkansas-led manhunts also halt at the state line. George Brewer, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Correction, said the state’s search teams also lack authority to make arrests outside Arkansas. Oglesby believes the unusual relationship between Polk County and the Oklahoma prison should force authorities to handle the situation differently.
Bradley Keith’s January escape followed a familiar script. Keith, 23, was serving five years in prison for 2006 convictions in Payne County, northeast of Oklahoma City, for possession of a stolen vehicle and possession of a controlled substance within 2, 000 feet of a park or school, according to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.
Rowton said Keith “walked off” sometime before the 9 p.m. roll call. He had been seen two hours before on the prison’s grounds.
The prison’s dog team picked up his scent along the nearby railroad line and pursued him toward the state line.
Five hours later, about 2 a. m., a caller from Chad Willims’ Polk County home off U. S. 270 called Oglesby’s office and said that someone fitting Keith’s description was hiding in a backyard shed.
Willims lives 15 miles east of the prison.
Oglesby said he immediately called the prison’s search team, which was stationed two miles away from Willims’ home at the state line.
Per prison policy, the team would not cross into Arkansas to check out the report.
By the time Oglesby’s deputy arrived 20 minutes later, the man hiding in the shed had disappeared into the woods.
“If they’d come two miles up the road, they would have been on him in less than 30 minutes,” Oglesby said, referring to the search team’s dog pack. “It’s a frustrating thing.” Oglesby believes Keith continued east along U. S. 270 and stole a 2001 Chevrolet Cavalier from Mike Jackson’s residence off Lucinda Lane.
Jackson discovered that the car was missing around 6 a.m. when he woke up to go to work.
He left the car door unlocked and the key in the ignition.
Authorities found Jackson’s car abandoned along a highway in Oklahoma City on Jan. 29. Jackson spent $ 225 on impound fees and fuel to get the car back home the next day. Jackson is glad that’s all he lost. “He could have come into the house, just as easy as stolen the car, and cut my throat while I was laying in bed,” he said. Howard, Hamilton’s warden, said Keith arranged to turn himself in to a Department of Corrections agent at a fast food restaurant in Oklahoma City five days later. “Apparently, Keith realized his days on the run were numbered,” Howard said.
Massie said the search team had no choice but to stop pursuing Keith when he crossed into Arkansas.
“If you act as a law enforcement officer, and you don’t have the authority to do so, whatever action you take could be called into question,” he said. “And you put the state of Oklahoma at risk to be sued for operating outside the scope of your authority.” Rowton also said any prison official who is injured pursuing a convict into Arkansas might not be covered under the prison’s workers’ compensation plan.
Instead, Massie said, prison officials rely on local law enforcement to apprehend suspects who make it to another state. Prison officials help by feeding information on the escapees’ possible whereabouts.
Oglesby contacted Arkansas ’ attorney general after Keith’s escape and asked him to investigate the legality of crafting a compact that would authorize the prison’s search team to come into Polk County during manhunts.
Gabe Holmstrom, a spokesman for McDaniel, said McDaniel feels it’s legal for governmental entities, including those in different states, to enter into cooperative agreements like this.
The police departments in Texarkana, Texas, and Texarkana, Ark., have operated on both sides of the border under a mutual-aid agreement for at least 15 years, said Texarkana Police Department Capt. Mark Lewis.
Officers used to work under the direction of a supervisor from the opposite department, Lewis said.
Today, officers from both departments are free to operate independently in either city under the authority of state statutes approved by Texas and Arkansas legislatures.
Holmstrom said it’s up to Polk County and the Oklahoma prison system to work one out.
Massie said the agency is open to discussing it, but reaching an agreement isn’t a top priority for the department. He said the department was only open, in years past, to letting prison officials lead searches outside the state in a voluntary capacity.
Oglesby said he’s committed to getting an agreement in place and has contacted the Polk County prosecuting attorney for help.
He plans to present a proposal to Oklahoma prison officials within 60 days.
“I may have to do some politicking,” Oglesby said. “But if I have to drive to Oklahoma City to get it done, I will.”
Copyright 2008 Arkansas Democrat Gazette