Arizona inmate escape exposes security flaws

August 5, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.

The three inmates didn’t seem to arouse the least bit of suspicion when they sneaked out of their dorm rooms and rushed to the perimeter of the medium-security prison.

Alarms that were supposed to go off didn’t. Apparently, no one was paying attention when the violent criminals sliced open fences with wire cutters and vanished into the desert.

The series of blunders surrounding the escape and the state’s practice of housing violent criminals in private, medium-security prisons have placed Arizona corrections officials under intense scrutiny.

Two of the fugitives remained at large Wednesday as the manhunt entered its fifth day. Authorities believe the inmates have left Arizona and were heading east with a girlfriend who allegedly threw the wire cutters over a fence.

Investigators are focusing on how the inmates managed to go undetected for several hours around the time of the escape and why three violent criminals were allowed in a medium- security prison.

The Arizona State Prison in Kingman opened in 2004, and was designed to house repeat drug and alcohol offenders and set them on a path to rehabilitation but eventually grew to include more-serious offenders in a separate unit. That is where Daniel Renwick, 36, Tracy Province, 42, and John McCluskey, 45, were housed.

Province was serving a life sentence for murder and robbery. Renwick was serving two 22-year sentences for two counts of second-degree murder, and McCluskey was doing 15 years for attempted murder, aggravated assault and discharge of a firearm.