2 Inmates Escape Jail in Helicopter

18 Mar, 2013

SAINT-JEROME, Quebec (AP) — Two Quebec inmates climbed up a rope into a hovering helicopter to make a daring daylight escape from a jail northwest of Montreal, authorities said, but both were later recaptured.

Quebec provincial police said early Monday they arrested four people about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the Saint-Jerome jail from which the inmates escaped on Sunday. Two of those arrested were 36-year-old inmate Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau and 33-year-old inmate Danny Provencal.

Hudon-Barbeau was arrested Sunday and later in the evening police had located Provencal, establishing a security perimeter around a building where he had barricaded himself.

Quebec Provincial Police Sgt. Benoit Richard said just before midnight that negotiations were continuing with Provencal and by early Monday Richard said Provencal had surrendered peacefully.

Earlier on Sunday, police received a call from the staff at the Saint-Jerome jail, reporting the escape around 2:20 p.m., Richard said.

The jail’s warden told police that Hudon-Barbeau and Provencal had grabbed a rope dropped from the helicopter to make their getaway, Richard said.

Quebec provincial police tracked down the helicopter used in the escape on Sunday afternoon to Mont-Tremblant, about 53 miles (85 kilometers) away from the jail but only the chopper’s pilot was still at the scene. He was taken to a local hospital and was treated for shock, Richard said. He called the pilot “an important witness” in the case.

According to a provincial police report, Hudon-Barbeau was arrested in November on two firearm related charges and associating with people who have a criminal record. The arrest came as part of an investigation of a double murder in Quebec.

A Montreal radio station, 98.5 FM, said it received a call Sunday from a man claiming to be Hudon-Barbeau, who said he was “ready to die” as he tried to evade police.

“The way they’re treating me in there, it’s unreal,” the man told the radio station. “They won’t let me be. They put me back in prison for nothing.”

Authorities did not immediately respond to the claims made in the radio station interview.

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