By Emily Allen
Portland Press Herald, Maine
PORTLAND, Maine — Three teens who escaped the Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland were caught and returned to custody Friday night several hours later, officials said.
The three boys — two 17-year-olds and one 14-year-old — had escaped Maine’s only youth prison around 12:30 p.m. Friday, according to a statement from Maine Department of Corrections spokesperson Samuel Prawer.
All three were apprehended by police in Saco between 9:30 and 10:30 p.m. Friday, Prawer said in a follow-up news release late Friday.
Around 9:20 p.m., Saco police began following a vehicle on Interstate 95 that matched a description given by the Maine DOC, Saco police Chief Jack Clements said in a news release late Friday.
The driver of the vehicle exited I-95 and stopped at a business in the 500 block of Main Street, at which point all three people inside fled on foot, Clements said. Officers created a perimeter and were able to detain two of the three suspects, he said.
While police were searching for the third suspect, a Saco emergency dispatcher who was leaving the police department spotted the third suspect on Main Street and alerted officers, who took the suspect into custody, Clements said.
The DOC said police from Saco, Biddeford, Portland and South Portland, as well as Maine State Police and the U.S. Marshals Service, assisted in the search for the teens.
Prawer said in Friday afternoon’s statement that DOC officials know how the teens were able to get out of the facility, but he did not elaborate.
It was not immediately clear why the teens were being held at Long Creek.
This is the second time this summer that the DOC has reported an escape from Long Creek. In July, police quickly found a 14-year-old who had gotten out of the facility for a little over two hours. That teen had broken a window to escape, according to police records detailed by the Bangor Daily News.
In 2024, two teens escaped the facility by climbing onto the roof and jumping off it. The pair led police in Maine and neighboring states on a three-day manhunt, stealing at least three cars and crashing two.
In light of Friday’s escape, DOC Commissioner Randall Liberty is again ordering “a comprehensive review of facility security infrastructure and management practices” in an effort to prevent future escapes, Prawer wrote.
A union representing more than 40 Long Creek workers said last year that the facility is chronically understaffed and unable to keep residents safe, particularly when it comes to riots. By the end of last year, Long Creek reported more than a quarter of positions were unfilled, largely those responsible for security and dealing directly with residents.
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