Two inmates who were the subject of a manhunt after escaping from an Arizona prison in Florence last weekend were recaptured in a cotton field in the nearby Coolidge community on Thursday, authorities said. Police officers from Coolidge and US Deputy Marshals detained David T. Harmon and John B. Charpiot after police received calls from several residents who reported seeing the prisoners.
Agents who happened to be in the area to work on an unrelated fugitive case responded to the reports. Police saw Harmon and Charpiot in a cotton field 14 miles from the prison.
The inmates refused orders to land, tried to run and were captured after officers used tranquilizer guns to subdue them, authorities said.
US Marshal David Gonzales said the prisoners had asked the officers to kill them.
They both said, ‘Just shoot me,’ said Gonzales.
A police video made in the cotton field showed one prisoner falling to the ground before being captured and the other being tackled by officers.
Both inmates needed medical attention, Coolidge Chief of Police Mark Tercero told the Casa Grande Dispatch. In a photo taken after the prisoners were captured, someone had blood on his face.
Harmon and Charpiot had escaped from a medium-duty unit at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence on Saturday by breaking a fence with tools. Coolidge is located 13 kilometers southwest of Florence.
Authorities are investigating where the prisoners went after their escape, and state prison officials are also investigating how the escape took place and how to prevent a similar breach in the future.
Frank Strada, deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry, said he was unaware of any information about corrections that helped workers escape the couple. No fixes have employees suspended or fired as a result of the security breach.
Handout through Arizona Department of Public Safety
Tercero said a local man called the police to say that he was following two men he believed were the escapees and that a woman separately called the police to report that her parents’ house had just been broken into by two men. men who had fled on foot. A third person called the police to say he was chasing the men, Tercero said.
Tercero said state officials will determine whether the callers are eligible for the $ 70,000 reward offered for information leading to the detainees’ arrest.
Authorities looking for the prisoners previously carried out 800 door-to-door searches of homes near the prison in Florence.
The Ministry of Public Security said the inmates reportedly tried to rob a company in Florence on Saturday night before walking away when a receptionist yelled for help.
Harmon was jailed in 2012 after being sentenced to 100 years in Maricopa County for kidnapping and second-degree burglary. Charpiot was sent to prison in 2011 for 35 years after being convicted of child and sexual abuse in the same province.