Authorities continue today to seek a Butler man who escaped home detention by removing an electronic monitoring bracelet and an alcohol monitoring bracelet last week.

Butler County detectives on Wednesday got an arrest warrant for 49-year-old John E. Hopkins, who is charged with escape and criminal mischief.

The suspect turned up missing Nov. 30 when the county probation office learned that he had violated his probation.

Probation officers and Butler police went to Hopkins’ home in the 200 block of East Walnut Street and discovered that he was gone, court documents say.

“It appeared (the defendant) had taken some of his belongings and left,” Detective Tim Fennell said.

In a closet, he said, officers found Hopkins’ electronic ankle bracelet and a Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitor device, SCRAM, both of which had been cut off.

The SCRAM device is a tamper-resistant — not tamper-proof — bracelet that a drunken driving offender wears on an ankle. It measures blood-alcohol levels in a person’s sweat.

Hopkins last month was ordered to wear the more traditional electronic bracelet stemming from a pending terroristic threats case that Butler police filed against him in May.