eastoregonian.com/front page/10-21-99
MYRTLE POINT - A sex offender who became the first escapee from Pendleton's state prison 18 days ago is behind bars again after he was arrested Wednesday while trying to flee from police by jumping from a second-floor window.
Police said James Kinney, 39, was spotted limping into town early Wednesday by Myrtle Point policeman Marvin Parker. Parker figured it might be Kinney and called Coos County, which sent a 15-member SWAT team to the apartment of Kinney's sister, where the fugitive had gone.
The apartment had been under surveillance.
Four SWAT team members went to the door of the apartment over an appliance repair store, but no one answered. Kinney, who had been taking a shower and changing clothes, went out through a bathroom window.
Coos County Sheriff's Lt. Larry Leader said Kinney, armed with a .22-caliber revolver, was quickly arrested after he dropped about 20 feet to the ground at about 10:30 a.m.
''During his fall to the ground he dropped the weapon. He was not in a position to do a lot of struggling,'' Leader said, adding that Kinney was stunned slightly from the drop.
Kinney escaped from the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution on Oct. 2. He was the first inmate to break out of the facility in its 14-year history.
He used a rope made of flag football belts to swing over a razor-topped fence. The rope broke, however, and he fell into the wire before using what was left of the rope to climb over the fence.
A trail of blood was discovered leading away from the prison across the perimeter patrol road.
When Kinney was captured Wednesday he had severely infected wounds from the razor wire, said Perrin Damon, communications manager for the Oregon Department of Corrections.
Kinney was taken to a hospital and treated for wounds sustained in his escape and also for cuts and bruises from his second-story fall, Damon said.
Kinney had been serving a 37-year sentence for a conviction of first- and second-degree sodomy and two counts of first-degree sex abuse involving an attack on a 13-year-old Grants Pass girl.
''It's a terrific relief that he was captured,'' Damon said, adding that Kinney would be taken to a maximum-security prison in Salem as soon as possible.
Jean Hill, superintendent at EOCI, said she also was relieved to learn that Kinney had been captured and noted that he would not likely return to EOCI anytime soon.
Kinney faces a charge of one count of second-degree escape in Umatilla County, district attorney Chris Brauer said.
"He will be a guest at our facility long enough to be tried on that charge," Brauer said, adding that the sentence range for a second-degree escape conviction could add up to an additional 30 months to Kinney's sentence.
"Law enforcement has been extremely diligent in covering all their bases," Brauer said of Kinney's pursuit. "Good job for them."
An eyewitness to Kinney's arrest Wednesday morning,contractor Richard Cataldo, sat in his truck outside the police roadblock and saw Kenny leaning out the window of his sister's apartment waving a gun.
Cataldo saw the police approach.
''They said 'drop your gun,' and that's when he fell,'' Cataldo said.
''They tackled him. He had four or five police officers on him. He tried to push up with his legs, and that's when one of the officers hit him in the back with his rifle,'' Cataldo said.
The Associated Press contacted Kenny's sister, but she and her son refused to give their names or discuss what had happened.
This is not the first time Coos County authorities have dealt with Kinney, whose life of crime began as a juvenile in 1973.
In 1977, Kinney attacked and stabbed a Coos County law enforcement officer who caught him with a stolen vehicle. He attacked another officer in 1978 in Humboldt County, Calif.
Kinney was on parole for attempted murder when he was arrested for the rape of the young girl in 1996. While in the Josephine County Jail in Grants Pass, he attacked a deputy in the jail exercise yard in an assault so vicious that other prisoners helped the deputy and subdued Kinney.
He initially went to the maximum security Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem but was transferred to the medium security facility in Pendleton because he had so many enemies in the Salem facility.
Last year, Kinney was found with a rope in his cell, which he may have been planning to use in an escape attempt. In a four-year period he escaped twice from California prisons.