Inmate arrested 13 minutes after driving away from forest work site
Published 5:00 pm Thursday, October 13, 2022
- Davis
BAKER CITY — An inmate from the Powder River Correctional Facility in Baker City was in police custody about 13 minutes after he allegedly stole a Forest Service pickup while working as part of a 10-member crew building a fence Wednesday, Oct. 12, near Dixie Summit on Highway 26 in Grant County.
Oregon State Police arrested Hal Andrew Davis III, 22, along Highway 26 at Indian Creek, about 5 miles west of Prairie City and about 14 miles from where he allegedly took the pickup, which was unoccupied with the keys in the ignition.
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According to a press release from the Oregon Department of Corrections, the Powder River crew was working near Highway 26 about 9 miles northeast of Baker City.
Powder River, a minimum-security facility, has one crew of 10 inmates who occasionally work outside the prison, said Laura Hoopes, public information officer at Powder River.
One corrections officer from the prison was supervising the crew and one Forest Service employee also was present, Hoopes said.
Davis allegedly drove away at about 1:20 p.m. in the Forest Service pickup, which is part of the fleet for the Prairie City Ranger District on the Malheur National Forest.
Hoopes said the corrections officer quickly noticed Davis was absent and called Oregon State Police.
Hoopes didn’t know how far the work site was from where the pickup was parked.
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Grant County Sheriff Todd McKinley saw Davis driving on Highway 26 about 3 miles east of Prairie City. Davis was driving west toward John Day, according to a press release from McKinley.
An OSP recruit trooper and a Grant County deputy arrested Davis about 2 miles farther west.
Davis was taken to the Grant County Jail in Canyon City, where he was charged with second-degree escape and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.
He has been in Department of Corrections custody since March 24, 2022, after pleading guilty in Lane County to unauthorized use of a vehicle. He admitted stealing a Ford F350 pickup and trailer on Feb. 11, 2022.
Davis also pleaded guilty to stealing another vehicle two days earlier, a Honda Accord. He pleaded guilty to unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, attempting to elude a police officer and reckless driving in that incident.
His earliest release date was April 17, 2024.
After Davis went missing, corrections officials did an emergency count and found all the other inmates were present. They were returned to the Baker City prison, Hoopes said.
Davis is the first Powder River inmate to walk away from a work crew, or escape from the prison itself, in 16 years.
The most recent escape, an inmate who left through the front entrance of the prison in 2006, was the 58th since Powder River, a minimum-security facility, opened at 3600 13th St. in northwest Baker City in November 1989.
All 58 of those inmates were later apprehended.
Most of the escapes — 44 of 58 — happened during the first six years of the prison’s operation. Of those, 26 climbed over the prison’s 12-foot-high perimeter fence.
But in February 1996 the Corrections Department installed coils of razor wire atop the fence, and since then just three inmates have escaped from the prison grounds.
The prison houses about 316 inmates who are within five years of release. Powder River is a transition and re-entry facility that focuses on preparing inmates for release. The prison has a 128-bed drug and alcohol treatment program operated by New Directions Northwest. Inmates who complete the treatment program can have their sentence shortened.