Crime Briefs: Runaway Inmates, Pot-Smoking Conscripts
Three Tartu Prison inmates who have been allowed to travel freely to and from their off-site work locations failed to return yesterday evening, triggering a manhunt.
The inmates turned out to have been partying at a Jõgeva County farmhouse, and police detained two of them upon arrival, reported uudised.err.ee. The third escaped into a forest, but was caught with the help of a police dog later in the night, at 00:30.
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At 12:22 on Friday afternoon, a detained suspect at the Pärnu jail attempted to escape in the course of being loaded onto a prison transport vehicle.
The detainee, who is suspected of drug crimes, continued to flee after being ordered to stop and a guard fired two warning shots with a gun. He climbed a fence on the premises, on the other side of which he was again detained by another prison guard and police officer, a Justice Ministry spokeswoman told uudised.err.ee.
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At the beginning of July, officials checked conscripts at the Kuperjanov Battalion for drugs, discovering several marijuana smokers.
Narcotics dogs sniffed 367 conscripts, eight of whom were then sent to the South Estonia Hospital for drug testing. Their tests all showed up positive for marijuana, reported uudised.err.ee.