By Hal Brown
This is a small story about Portland in the greater scheme of things and isn’t national news. One local TV station still has it as their featured story on the internet:
The two other stations moved it down the page:
Here’s the story: Attempted murder suspect escapes police custody.
The suspect was captured after a foot chase following his ramming a police car and injuring the officer who was inside. Normally this would have been a positive police story depending on one’s thinking about shooting at unarmed fleeing suspects, since they captured the suspect without hurting or killing him, albeit not for the want of trying.
It would have been of interest because the officer fired her gun at him while he was running away and her life wasn't immediately in jeopardy and although he was a fleeing felon there was no reason to believe he was still a danger to others. Normally the shooting would have been investigated to determine whether the officer violated department policies about use of potentially lethal force.
What piqued my interest wasn't this, rather it was this part:
At 5:30 p.m. Saturday, detectives discovered Dahlen had escaped the secure holding cell he was in at Central Precinct in downtown Portland near SW 2nd Ave. The building was immediately locked down and additional resources were called it. It was later confirmed Dahlen had gotten out of the building and was last seen running north.
The investigation will include trying to answer just how Dahlen escaped from a secure cell.
Portland police are having to deal with the city being a magnet for protests which turn into riots, for example, this still in the news: Downtown Portland businesses assess New Year’s Eve riot damage.
In looking at the mugshot of the escapee I can’t say he looks like an escape artist which if he managed to escape from a secure holding cell without assistance he very well may prove to be.
I hope they catch this man and he is given a fair trial and gets the punishment he deserves. Out of curiosity I want to know why he decided to ram the police car. (See the speculation in the first comment.) In particular though,, I want to learn if he is some modern day Houdini:
Escape from Murderer’s Row
In 1906, Houdini escaped from Murderer’s Row, the south wing of Washington, D.C.’s Old Jail. The guards stripped Houdini of all his clothes and handcuffed Houdini before locking him inside a cell. While it only took him two minutes to escape, he used the last nineteen minutes of his act to open eight other locked cells, switch the prisoners around and lock them inside again. Would love to know how the inmates felt about that. Reference
In various capacities in my role as a police reserve officer and consultant to two Sheriff Departments I have seen a half dozen or more holding cells. When they describe a holding cell as secure they mean it. Unlocking one would be no simple feat. If someone was negligent and left a door unlocked the prisoner would still have to pass undetected past a gauntlet of law enforcement and clerical personnel at the exits who are supposed to be watching a bank of closed circuit TV monitors to get to freedom.