The search continues for a dangerous wanted fugitive 52-year-old Timothy Clausen who escaped from prison on Friday. Law enforcement authorities believe he is in the Omaha area.
Omaha police said someone spotted Clausen near 16th and Grace overnight. His accomplice, 37-year-old Armon Dixon was captured on Saturday.
Now lawmakers are demanding answers as to how this could have happened.
“The protocols probably worked as advertised as the director said but maybe they need to work quicker,” said state senator Bob Krist.
Krist is watching what is happening with the department of corrections very carefully. He’s on the legislature’s Judiciary Committee and on the special legislative committee investigating the department of corrections. Krist said the department should have notified local law enforcement quicker.
“The time it took to communicate safety issues, in my estimation are unacceptable,” said Krist.
At a news conference Monday, Department of Correction Director Scott Frakes said around 9 in the morning on Friday, both Dixon and Clausen snuck out of the facility in a laundry truck and later cut a hole in the truck’s roof to escape. It wasn’t until a little before 1p.m. that day that it was confirmed the men were missing to local law enforcement.
“We failed our mission to get people safe, we will make no excuses for our failures,” said Frakes.
This isn’t the first time Clausen escaped from prison, he escaped in 1984 and in 1995, where he was in a wheelchair after he broke his feet and ankles jumping out of the Douglas County Corrections Center.
Krist said one of his major concerns about Clausen on the loose is his vengeance, “This gentlemen has made personal threats and comments towards people who were involved with his trial and his conviction”.
“I'm hoping that in the next few months we are going to find out that there’s a definite and definitive reason why this happened-hints it will never happen again,” said Krist.
If you know where Clausen is hiding you are urged to call 911.
