Manhunt tactics shift again
Law enforcement officials ‘geared for the long haul.’
— Nearly DANNEMORA, N.Y. two weeks have passed since a pair of inmates escaped from the maximum security prison here,and in that time,it seems one thing is clear: Progress has been hard to come by.
In a news conference Friday,officials acknowledged that they had shifted tactics and expectations after spending days - and,according to local accounts,millions of dollars — dispatching hundreds of law enforcement officers to scour the dense woods and property in the area near the Clinton Correctional Facility.R ichard W.M att,48,and D avid Sweat,35,escaped from the prison Friday,June 5, or early Saturday,June 6, emerging from a manhole outside the prison wall.
“We’re geared for the long haul,” M aj.Charles E.G uess of the New York State Police told reporters outside the prison,adding officials were “no strangers to lengthy months-or a yearlong investigation.”
“O ur plan is to pursue these men relentlessly until they are in our custody,” he added.
Now,officials said,investigators would focus on searching littleused country roads,railroad tracks and trails — any path that the inmates might have used to flee this remote pocket of the state.G uess also asked that hunters and wildlife watchers check images captured by any motion-activated cameras to see if they photographed the men or any clues that might lead to them.
So far,investigators have covered more than 600 miles of trails and railroad beds,as well as more than 200 abandoned or seasonal homes and other structures.
“We have fully transitioned our ground search efforts to searches of potential routes they may have traveled on foot,and focus only on potential avenues of egress,” G uess said.
In D annemora,168 state troopers will continue to patrol the area.Investigators are also evaluating the flood of tips that have been called in, including some that could lead investigators outside the region, Guess said.
“D ozens of investigators are chasing down new leads as soon as they come in,” he said.
On Friday, the U.S.Marshals Service added M att and Sweat to their list of most-wanted fugitives, a measure to help disseminate photos of the escapees more widely. The list is “reserved for the worst of the worst,” Stacia H ylton, director of the Marshals Service, said in a statement.