Given the Slip : Escape: Police say that a man accused of growing marijuana got out of his handcuffs and quietly left the station.

Just before he was supposed to be booked Saturday for allegedly growing marijuana, James Robert Crofton slipped out of his handcuffs and walked out of a police station to freedom.

Authorities, who said the incident is “not typical,” said Crofton and alleged accomplice Brian Parris, 26, were arrested about 2:30 a.m. when Los Angeles Police Department patrol officers noticed them loading up a van with 30-inch-high marijuana plants potted in white plastic buckets.

The two men were handcuffed, brought into the LAPD’s West Valley station and were seated on a bench to await processing, said Sgt. Roger Ferguson.

Although West Valley has a holding room, it was already occupied, Ferguson said. When that happens, suspects are seated on a bench, facing a wall. Their handcuffs, secured behind them, were attached to a second set of cuffs, which are permanently attached to the bench.

Ferguson, who was not on duty at the time of the escape, said the patrol officers in the station were called out just after the two men were brought in. A watch commander and a desk officer stayed behind, but were sitting away from the holding bench, Ferguson said.

Then, while Parris watched, Crofton slipped out of the cuffs that attached him to the bench and made his way out a nearby back door, about 15 feet away, said arresting Officer John Futrell. He apparently was still wearing Futrell’s cuffs, the officer said.

“We don’t necessarily keep an eyeball account of every person handcuffed to the bench. For the most part, when we cuff someone to the bench, they stay there,” Ferguson said. “Any time something like this happens, we’re not proud of it.”

Futrell said when he and his partner came upon Ferguson and Parris on Del Valle Street near Ventura Boulevard, Parris was loading the plants into the van. Crofton, he said, came out with more plants and then ran back inside an apartment building when he spotted the officers.

Crofton was arrested inside the apartment, which Futrell said was a “jungle” of marijuana plants. Police recovered 134 plants, ranging in size from seedlings to 7-foot-tall stalks.

“I haven’t seen a seizure of marijuana this high since the ‘70s,” he said. “These are pros all the way.”

The apartment did not appear to be anyone’s home, Futrell said. The walls were covered with plastic sheeting, he said. Stockpiled in the room were fertilizers, dirt, heat lamps, drying racks, plastic baggies and fans.

Crofton, whose last known address was in Westlake Village, is not considered dangerous, Ferguson said, although he has previously been convicted for enticing a minor to work as a prostitute.

“The incident is not typical,” Ferguson said. “If I tried to explain it or make excuses, it would sound like just that.”

Crofton, 41, is 5 feet, 9 inches tall, 150 pounds, with receding brown hair and blue eyes. He was last seen wearing a purple print Hawaiian shirt, Ferguson said.

Parris is being held on $50,000 bail, on felony charges of cultivating marijuana.