CONCORD, NH — Since around 10 p.m., Concord police and other law enforcement agencies have been searching for a prison inmate who escaped custody at Concord Hospital and is loose somewhere in the West End.
Concord police were called to the emergency room after the corrections department asked for help for a man who escaped their custody. The man reportedly headed toward the Rum Hill Road and Pleasant View Retirement Center area. The man, identified as Benjamin Ayala, 36, was a “C-5 level inmate, considered dangerous,” according to dispatch. He was described as a Hispanic man, bald, wearing a gray or blue sweatshirt, with gray shorts with black pants underneath.
An officer reported Ayala was last seen in a hospital stairwell, but they did not know if he had left the building or campus. Later, at around 10:30 p.m., an officer reported, “There’s next to no video footage of this guy leaving” the building. The watch commander reported the inmate might still have shackles on, too.
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Other police officers said corrections officers chased him out of the building, and he was heading east.
A New Hampshire State Police helicopter was requested but they could not send it out due to the weather. Dispatch later stated they were bringing two drones to the city to assist with the search.
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Officers searched the hospital area and were heard reporting from Rum Hill Road, School Street, Kensington Road, Kent Street, Langley Parkway, Dwinell Drive, Palmer Avenue, Fisk Road, Long Pond Road, and Little Pond Road, and trails around the hospital, including Winant Park.
Around 10:45 p.m., one officer reported finding fresh footprints in the snow. A K-9 unit also tracked scents outside the campus area in the residential neighborhood.
A taxi driver reported seeing a Hispanic man with black pants with a white stripe on the side and a beany trying to flag him down in the area of North Main and Pleasant streets around 11:30 p.m. but did not know if he was connected to the case. Police and state troopers then headed to Downtown Concord. Later, they returned to the search area.
Ayala has a lengthy criminal history dating back to 2007 when he was convicted on a criminal threatening charge out of Derry. A burglary charge during the same incident was nolle prossed.
Later, he was found guilty by a jury of first-degree assault, second-degree assault, and simple assault charges in Derry.
While in the Rockingham County Jail, in 2008, Ayala was charged and found guilty of aggravated felonious sexual assault, assault by a prisoner, and 10 counts of witness tampering. One other prison rape charge was dismissed.
Ayala was also charged with criminal mischief and unlawful interference with a fire alarm apparatus charges, which were dropped later.
In 2013, the Portsmouth Herald wrote a story about prison rapes in the Rockingham County Jail, which mentioned the Ayala case. He was sentenced to five to 10 years in prison for raping an inmate.
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