Police on Thursday tracked the fugitive's footprints in the melting snow toward a 6-foot backyard wall in a south-central Santa Fe neighborhood.

Jairo Adair Contreras, who had escaped nearly two weeks ago from an inmate work crew at Maricopa County Jail in Phoenix in an oversized laundry cart, had scaled the wall into a girlfriend's yard, according to police.

A blue-and-white Mongoose bicycle lay on its side just feet from where police peered over the barrier, guns drawn, trying to confirm that Contreras, 20, was inside.

"Because of his history," Santa Fe police Lt. Louis Carlos said, "and the fact that he escaped and that he was armed, this was a heightened response from our agency."

On Tuesday morning, Santa Fe police received a tip from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office that Contreras was driving a white Hyundai Sonata in the Santa Fe area. By 11 a.m., Santa Fe police had located the vehicle.

A patrol officer tried to pull Contreras over in his car, but Contreras evaded police through the neighborhood between Yucca Street and Camino Carlos Rey. Then the fugitive reportedly abandoned the vehicle on Ponderosa Lane and fled on foot.

According to police, witnesses walking the trail that follows the arroyo behind Santa Fe High School said they saw Contreras running away from the Hyundai.

"He was seen running toward Santa Fe High School -- and, of course, De Vargas Middle School and Nava Elementary are close by," Carlos said.

All three schools were put on lockdown because of the threat. By 1:30 p.m., the lockdown was lifted.

Contreras wasn't going to a school.

According to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, deputies there had traced Contreras' girlfriend's cellphone to an address in Santa Fe. Those detectives then contacted the U.S. Marshals Office in Albuquerque and located the house at 2206 Camino Rancho Siringo -- the residence a New Mexico State Police helicopter was circling by 1 p.m. Tuesday.

Frank Romero, 23, and his family were home when police and specially equipped SWAT officers rushed into his neighborhood.

"We were inside watching TV, and it said he was in the area. We thought he was in the arroyo," Romero said. "But then we saw the SWAT team was right behind our mailbox."

By 1:04 p.m., a handcuffed Contreras, flanked by two SWAT team officers, was escorted from the house. Contreras' girlfriend, who also was in the house, had been evacuated minutes earlier with a child. No weapons were found at the residence.

"He did not fight them," Carlos said. "There were not any shots fired or any violence shown from him."

According to the Maricopa County jail website, Contreras had been incarcerated there on charges of theft, criminal trespass and burglary, as well as failure to appear in court, and probation and transportation violations. He had been arrested there Jan. 12.

Before his escape, Contreras had been scheduled for release soon on a "work furlough," according to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office.

According to JJ Hensley of the Arizona Republic, Contreras was serving time in Tent City, an open-air lockup where inmates are made to wear pink underwear and black-and-white horizontally stripped prison garb. According to the Maricopa Country Sheriff's Office website, more than 2,000 minimum-security inmates inhabit Tent City, a facility with rows of Army tents surrounded by four SkyWatch Towers, electric stun fences and facial-recognition computer software for inmate identification.

Santa Fe police have turned Contreras' case over to the U.S. Marshals Office. Lt. Carlos said Contreras will be charged as a fugitive in New Mexico, then extradited to Arizona.

Contact Nico Roesler at 986-3089 or nroesler@sfnewmexican.com.