Two teenagers who broke out of Maine’s only youth prison late last month escaped by climbing onto the roof and jumping off the front of the building, police wrote in court records.
The records shed light for the first time on how Davyn Flynn, 18, and a 16-year-old boy, whom authorities have not identified because he is a minor, were able to break loose from Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland on the evening of July 27. They allegedly went on to carjack a woman leaving her nearby apartment building and disappeared for nearly four days until authorities captured them in separate locations on July 30, according to police.
The escape renewed scrutiny of conditions at Long Creek, where employees have repeatedly raised concerns about how chronic staff shortages lead to dangerous situations for staff and youth, including lockdowns and riots. A spokesperson for the Maine Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to a question on Tuesday about whether staffing levels contributed to last month’s escape.
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Around 7:30 p.m. on July 27, police in South Portland responded to a reported breakout at Long Creek and calls that a nearby woman had been robbed and her car stolen, according to police reports filed in Cumberland County Superior Court related to a series of charges now pending against Flynn. The records don’t specify what town he is from.
The officers learned that three boys had initially tried to escape, according to a report from South Portland Police Department Detective Jonathan Stearns, but only two had made it onto the prison roof and out of the prison’s fenced perimeter.
Stears reviewed video footage from inside Long Creek’s recreation yard a few days later, as police worked to track down the missing teenagers. The footage showed Flynn, the 16-year-old and another boy “dragging a picnic table over to a set of stairs, propping it up at the top of the stairs towards the roof line and then climbing it and getting onto the roof.”
Two of them made it off the prison grounds shortly after that, but the third boy didn’t escape. That’s because a guard had come out, saw Flynn and the 16-year-old climbing the table, and called it in on his radio, according to Stearns’ report.
After jumping from the prison’s roof, Flynn and the 16-year-old allegedly ran across the street to the Liberty Commons apartment complex and stopped a woman who had been pulling out of a parking spot in a Honda Civic, according to police reports that cite video footage and witness accounts. Flynn allegedly threatened to shoot her if she didn’t hand over the car, then yanked her out of the driver’s seat and drove off with the other boy, according to police reports.
Police spent the next several days searching for them. Officers in Georgetown, Massachusetts, arrested the 16-year-old early in the morning on July 30 after he allegedly crashed a stolen vehicle there. It is unclear whether he faces charges related to the escape because juvenile court records are confidential under state law.
Maine police captured Flynn a few hours later in Biddeford after local police spotted him fleeing the scene of a hit and run that involved a stolen vehicle, state corrections officials said. He has been charged with escaping a correctional facility, as well as robbery, criminal threatening, assault, theft and terrorizing related to the carjacking.
