By Noelle Crombie
oregonlive.com
HILLSBORO, Ore. — The Washington County District Attorney on Tuesday blasted the Oregon Department of Corrections for failing to take adequate steps to tighten security and oversight of prisoner work crews and called for an outside audit of the state program.
In a letter to Department of Corrections Director Colette Peters, District Attorney Kevin Barton called recent security-related changes to South Fork Forest Camp “woefully inadequate.”
The letter came one day after the Oregon Department of Forestry said it had resumed the operation of work crews at the minimum-security prison outside of Tillamook. The departments of forestry and corrections jointly operate the institution, which houses about 200 people.
The state had temporarily halted work crews in September, five months after a prisoner escaped and, authorities say, severely beat two women who were on a walk in a campground in rural Washington County.
Neither agency has made public the circumstances of Jedaiah Lunn’s escape, including how many supervisors were on site and how much time passed before they realized he was gone. The agencies also have not said whether any state workers were held responsible.
Gov. Kate Brown’s spokesperson in June said the two agencies would conduct an administrative review of what occurred.
The Department of Forestry said a series of security recommendations outlined in a recent memo serve as its review of the matter. Likewise, the Department of Corrections released its own recommendations in a July memo.
The agencies cited Lunn’s pending prosecution and a federal lawsuit filed by the two women as reasons for not providing the public with a detailed account of what led to Lunn’s escape.
Peters issued a statement through an agency spokesperson late Tuesday that did not directly address Barton’s recommendations. She said she appreciates Barton’s “interest in South Fork Forest Camp. He and I are in agreement that the public’s safety is our first priority and we will continue to operate South Fork with that founding principle.”
“As with all of our institutions, safety and security are our top priority and we continue to evolve,” she said.
Lunn was assigned to a work crew on April 14 that was dispatched to the Gales Creek Campground in the Tillamook State Forest on the western edge of Washington County. Lunn, a 14-time felon whose latest conviction for second-degree robbery stemmed from a 2017 home invasion robbery, was serving a three-year sentence at the time.
At some point that day, Lunn walked off. He encountered two women and is alleged to have beaten them so severely with a large stick that one suffered a traumatic brain injury and the other suffered broken bones. He stole car keys from one of the women, took off and was captured that night on Sauvie Island.
The Oregonian/OregonLive pieced together the circumstances of the escape and subsequent attack from public records, 911 recordings, interviews with witnesses and the women’s federal lawsuit.
In his letter to Peters, Barton said he told Inspector General Craig Prins of his plans to convene a grand jury to review the South Fork operations in Washington County.
Prins told him a review had already taken place, security had been improved and the work crews would resume, according to Barton’s letter.
In a memo last week to agency staff, Department of Forestry administrator Andy White said the agency had strengthened oversight of work crews with “the primary goal of re-emphasizing public and employee safety as the top priority.”
He wrote that the agency would beef up supervision of work crews, post signs in areas where prisoners are working and mark prisoners’ clothing “more prominently.”
Spot checks would be carried out by supervisors and employee training would be offered, according to the memo.
Barton in an interview Tuesday dismissed the changes as “window dressing.”
In addition to calling for an outside audit, Barton said the Department of Corrections should prohibit prisoners who are serving time for violent crimes from work crew assignments and should require work crews to be supervised by armed corrections officers instead of forestry workers.
Barton also asked that the agency equip prisoners on the crews with GPS monitoring devices and require drug testing.
“I believe these suggestions are logical and frankly what many in our community likely assumed was occurring prior to this tragic incident,” he wrote in his letter to Peters. “lf these changes are not implemented, I ask that at a minimum you discontinue future South Fork operations in Washington County.”
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