Published:Tuesday, March 27, 2007 2:17 PM PDT
Serving the South Coast of Oregon

SWAT team captures escaped inmate
Tuesday, March 27, 2007 2:17 PM PDT

HUBBARD (AP) - A SWAT team captured an escaped convict Monday after a five-hour standoff at a Marion County house, the sheriff's office said.

Arturo Salinas, 53, was found unconscious, but apparently uninjured when SWAT team members entered the house. Salinas was taken to Salem Hospital.

Kevin Rau, the sheriff's office spokesman, said the Marion County SWAT team responded to the scene after getting a call from the Hubbard Police Department that Salinas was holed up inside the home of Loren Thompson, a 70-year-old, wheelchair-bound man.

During the next five hours, police negotiated with Salinas, who held Thompson hostage.

About eight neighboring mobile homes were evacuated during the standoff, which ended when SWAT members set off flash-bomb diversionary devices and entered the home at 5:30 p.m.

Salinas escaped from the minimum-security Santiam Correctional Institution on Sunday, said Susi Hodgin, the prison spokeswoman. She said Salinas was serving 15 months for robbery, and was due to be released from the prison in August.


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