Fugitives seek refuge in small town America

LA GRANDE, OREGON -  Carol Forsloff - Recent
arrests near La Grande, Oregon are evidence again how fugitives try to
find hiding places in small town America, even with a declining rate of
crime in larger cities.

According to FBI data released in 2008 cities got safer, while small towns had an increase in crime.

According
to police reports from Oregon two people from Toppenish, Washington are
in custody on numerous charges, including one who was wanted for
escape, after they twice attempted to elude state, county and local
police in the La Grande area Thursday night.  A five-year old boy
passenger in the car was also taken into protective custody.


Both people, Daniel Ididro Vazquez, 26, and Rachel Angelina Pedroza,
19, were in possession of heroin and methamphetamine.  Vazquez was on
escape from the Washington State Department of corrections.  Both are
now lodged at the Union County Jail.

The
five year old was taken into protective custody and turned over to
Department of Human Services.  Arrangements were made to release the boy
to a family relative.

La
Grande, Oregon is a town of approximately 11,000 people in Eastern
Oregon, one of those wayside towns with great history, mountainous and
wooded regions where people come from many places to enjoy the leisurely
ways of small towns.  Some folks they can hide there too, as they do in
other small towns.  But in La Grande it didn't work out for two

drug-carrying folks this week.