Two inmates who were hunted down after escaping from an Arizona prison in Florence last weekend were recovered Thursday in a cotton field in the nearby Coolidge community, according to van inform the authorities. Coolidge police officers and U.S. deputy marshals captured David T. Harmon and John B. Charpiot after police received calls from several residents who reported seeing the inmates.
Officers who were in the area working on a case of unrelated fugitives responded to the reports. Police saw Harmon and Charpiot in a cotton field 14 miles from prison.
The inmates refused orders to reach the ground, tried to flee and were captured after officers used stun guns to subdue them, authorities said.
U.S. Marshal David Gonzales said inmates asked officers to kill them.
“They both said,‘ They just shoot me, ’” Gonzales said.
A video of police caught in the cotton field showed one inmate falling to the ground before being captured and the other was attacked by officers.
The two inmates needed medical attention, Coolidge Police Commander Mark Tercero told the Casa Grande Dispatch. In a photo taken after the capture of the prisoners, one had blood on his face.
Harmon and Charpiot had escaped Saturday from a medium security unit of the Arizona state prison complex in Florence by using tools to break a fence. Coolidge is 8 miles southwest of Florence.
Authorities are investigating where the prisoners went after fleeing and state prison officials are also examining how the escape occurred and how to avoid a similar offense in the future.
Frank Strada, deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry, said he did not know of any information showing that correctional staff helped the couple escape. No corrections employee has been suspended or fired as a result of the security breach.
Brochure through the Arizona Department of Public Safety
Third said a local man called police to tell him he was following two men he believed were the fugitives and that a woman called police separately to report that her parents ’house had just been broken into by two men who fled on foot. A third person called police to tell him he was chasing the men, Third said.
Third said state officials will determine whether the interlocutors would be eligible for the $ 70,000 reward offered for information leading to the capture of inmates.
Authorities searching for the inmates had previously conducted 800 door-to-door searches of houses in the Florence prison area.
The state Department of Public Safety said inmates tried to rob a Florence business Saturday night before fleeing when an employee called for help.
Harmon was jailed in 2012 after being sentenced to 100 years for kidnapping and second-degree robbery in Maricopa County. Charpiot was sent to prison in 2011 for 35 years after being convicted of child molestation and sexual abuse in the same county.