Man cited for aiding jail escape

Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)

2002-02-12

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Man cited for aiding jail escape SUNNY VALLEY - A Grants Pass man was arrested late Friday for allegedly helping two inmates escape a jail work crew. Brian Doland, 39, of the 2000 block of Dawn Drive, was cited for conspiracy to commit second-degree escape and was released. He allegedly was driving a vehicle that picked up two Josephine County Jail inmates who ran from a crew working in Wolf Creek Park Friday morning. Shawn Edwin Blankenship, 32, and 22-year-old Brandon Waylon Hatch were charged with second-degree escape. Blankenship and Hatch told the sheriff's deputy supervising their six-man crew that they had to use the bathroom, said sheriff's Lt. Brian Anderson. Once they were out of sight, they fled, he said. The two walked about five miles from Wolf Creek to Sunny Valley, sticking to wooded areas while officers searched with dogs, deputies said. The sheriff's office received several calls Friday of two suspicious-looking men in the area. Deputies saw Blankenship and Hatch enter the small white vehicle driven by Doland around 8:30 p.m. and stopped the car on the south Interstate 5 onramp from Sunny Valley. The escape was the first time inmates had run from the Trailblazer crew since it was formed in the late 1980s, county corrections officers said. The crew's tasks have been suspended until the sheriff's office investigates the escape, Anderson said. Blankenship is in jail for several drug charges, and Hatch is awaiting trial for several property crimes.   Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.