Jason Alvord, 24, a white supremacist who escaped on March 5 from a detention facility in Phoenix, Arizona, was recaptured on March 12 in Lake Havasu City by local and federal law enforcement officers at a home belonging to relatives.

At the time of his escape, Alvord was nearing the end of a seven year sentence for federal civil rights violations. Following a 1998 incident in which Alvord and three other men used a baseball bat to assault a Hispanic man in Lake Havasu City to force him to move out of their neighborhood, Alvord was prosecuted under federal statutes because Arizona had no hate crimes laws. After assaulting the victim, Alvord and his accomplices left the scene to drink and joke about the incident. All defendants were arrested and ultimately either pleaded guilty or were convicted.

According to authorities, Alvord, whose nickname is "Hammer," had a shaved head, swastika tattoos, and wore skinhead clothing prior to his 1998 arrest; he was an "avowed white supremacist" who liked to listen to white power music and who recruited the other defendants to join the white supremacy movement in the months before the attack. The victim was a neighbor of one of the defendants.

By March 2004, Alvord was serving time at a reduced-security detention facility in anticipation of his release. It is unclear why he chose to flee, but federal marshals quickly tracked him back to Lake Havasu, where a standoff ensued until other residents of the house were allowed to leave. Authorities then found Alvord hiding in the attic.

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