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Oregon prison escape: Second in a week

Oregon prison escape: For the second time in one week, a prisoner has escaped from a state detention facility. Police are still looking for the inmate involved in the second Oregon prison escape.

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Oregon Department of Corrections/AP
Oregon prison escape: This undated photo shows inmate Clinton Orvill Swearingen, who authorities are looking for after escaping from a Central Oregon prison. KTVZ-TV reports the inmate, identified as 31-year-old Clinton Orvill Swearingen, was from the Deer Ridge Correctional Institution, a 7-year-old minimum-security prison near Madras.
  • By Shelby Sebens Reuters

| Portland, Oregon

Oregon State Police searched on Monday for a prison inmate who slipped away the night before from the Deer Ridge Correctional Institution, marking the second escape from an Oregon detention center in less than a week, prison officials said.

Clinton Orvill Swearingen II, 31, serving time for theft and burglary, was discovered missing from the Deer Ridge facility near the town of Madras in central Oregon, at about 10:30 p.m. on Sunday, corrections officials said.

On Wednesday, convicted sex offender Matthew Joseph Medlin, 30, jumped a fence and escaped from the Columbia River Correctional Institution in Portland just days before he was set to be released.

Police captured Medlin later that evening at a fast-food restaurant off Interstate 5, and he now faces additional charges.

"Of course we are concerned that this is the second inmate escape," said Betty Bernt, Oregon Department of Corrections communications manager. "Both incidents will receive a thorough review by DOC, as well as a state police investigation. All security protocols will be scrutinized."

Both men escaped from minimum-security facilities.

Corrections officials said Swearingen was most likely still wearing his prison garb - blue jeans with the word "inmate" and the DOC logo stenciled on the knee in orange, or red shorts and a blue T-shirt with the word "inmate" and the DOC logo printed in orange on the front and back.

Swearingen began his incarceration on Feb. 4 and his earliest release date was set for Dec. 10, 2017, authorities said.

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