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 His capture was the dramatic climax of a massive manhunt for Sweat
and fellow inmate Richard Matt, who were discovered missing from the
Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, on June 6.
Some 1,300 members of law enforcement took part in the search
through the forests and bogs of northern New York.
Sweat, 35, was shot twice and taken into custody in the town of
Constable, 23 miles (37 km) north of Duane, where his accomplice was
fatally shot on Friday, authorities said. He was captured just a
mile and a half (2.4 km) south of New York's border with the
Canadian province of Quebec.
Sergeant Jay Cook of the New York State Police was on patrol alone
when he spotted "a suspicious man walking down a roadway" at about
3:20 p.m. local time.
Cook called out to the individual, and when he turned the officer
recognized him as Sweat, police said.
The fugitive took off running and the officer shot him twice in the
torso, police said. Sweat was taken into custody and transported to
a local hospital for treatment.
"The nightmare is finally over," New York state Governor Andrew
Cuomo told a news conference. "If you were writing a movie plot,
they would say this was overdone." He added that Sweat was in stable
condition.
 Cuomo said he had personally congratulated the officer.
"It was a very courageous act. I said to Sgt. Cook, who has two
daughters, 16 and 17, 'You go home tonight and tell your daughters
you're a hero,'" the governor said.
CNN showed a photograph of pale, gaunt-looking Sweat after he was
captured, seated on the ground in a dark jacket and muddy camouflage
clothing. He appeared to have dried blood on his face.
Sweat has not been interviewed by investigators yet, Joseph D'Amico,
superintendent of the New York State police, told the same news
conference.
D'Amico, who said police had intended to apprehend Sweat without
using force if possible, said he did not know when the two fugitives
parted ways during their three-week trek.
Security was tight outside the Alice Hyde Medical Center in Malone,
where Sweat was first taken.
"I think a lot of people are going to rest easier tonight," said
Jessica Randall, 38, of Malone, who was shopping with her husband
when she saw police vehicles speed by.
CNN showed footage of an ambulance and police convoy which it
reported later took Sweat to a hospital in the state capital,
Albany.
Sweat's mother Pamela told a CNN affiliate in upstate New York that
she sighed with relief and then started crying when she heard her
son was caught but not killed.
She said he had known better than to seek help from her.
"If he would've come here, I would've knocked him out and had them
guys take him to the jail," Pamela Sweat said. "I've always done to
it to him when he was bad."
AUDACIOUS BREAKOUT
Capturing the suspect alive should enable New York state prison
authorities to learn more about how the pair managed to break out
and use that information to tighten security.
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In their audacious breakout, the pair cut through cell walls,
climbed along a catwalk, shimmied through a steam pipe and emerged
from a manhole outside prison walls, authorities said.
Matt, 49, was shot and killed on Friday near Malone, about 27 miles
(43 km) northwest of the maximum-security prison, by a member of the
U.S. Customs and Border Protection tactical unit.
Autopsy results released earlier on Sunday showed he was shot three
times in the head and died of severe skull fractures and brain
injuries.
Matt also had bug bites, blisters and minor abrasions "consistent
with living in the woods for three weeks," the New York State Police
said in a statement.
The manhunt for the pair had scoured a remote, heavily wooded area
where law enforcement agents worked around the clock in scorching
weather and driving rain using infrared devices and listening posts.
The New York Daily News published on Sunday what it said was a
photograph of the pair walking in sunlit woods, taken by a trail
camera, while they were on the run on Wednesday. In the picture, one
of them appears to be holding a shotgun or rifle.
Sweat's DNA had been found on a pepper shaker, about a mile from
where Matt was shot, which he apparently used in an effort to throw
tracking dogs off the scent, D'Amico said.
Sweat had been serving a life sentence without parole since 2003 for
killing a New York sheriff's deputy.
Matt was convicted in the 1997 torture, murder and dismemberment of
his boss in Tonawanda, New York. After he apparently fired a shot at
a passing motorist on Friday, officers spotted and confronted him
outside a cabin.
He was shot and killed after he refused to comply with orders to put
down a shotgun he was holding, police said.
The Buffalo News has reported that Matt, who turned 49 the day
before, may have been intoxicated, citing the owner of a burglarized
cabin who said he had found empty liquor bottles.
Police said toxicology results were pending.
Two prison workers have been charged with aiding in the escape. Gene
Palmer, a 57-year-old corrections officer, is accused of bringing
hacksaw blades and a screwdriver bit to the inmates, hidden in
frozen hamburger meat supplied by Joyce Mitchell, 51, a training
supervisor in the prison tailor shop.
(Additional reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst in New York and Daniel
Wallis in Denver; Editing by Frank McGurty, Matthew Lewis and Phil
Berlowitz)
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