Flown The Coop (as of 8 a.m. 28 May 2009)

This is the first day I'll be tracking, as best I can, those individuals who have proactively refused the hospitality of the Government.

The other night I heard someone say on television, "People escape from jail all the time."

Do they?

Let's see if they do. I will post on days when there is prison break news. If a comment seems fitting, I add one at the end of the story. If not, I don't. If there are no prison escapes on a given day, I don't blog. Now let's all open our Bibles, extract our digging tools, and get busy...

Gone, But Not Far
From KTEN Channel 10 serving North Texas and Southern Oklahoma:

The sheriff says inmate Billy Wallace ran down an alley behind the courthouse, and then headed South on 3rd Street where he got into a car. He says in all his escape lasted about 15 minutes, but that 15 minutes of freedom could put him behind bars for the rest of his life.

Sheriff Bill Sturch says, "At the rate he's going, he's going to spend the better part of his life in prison."

For a second time, 18-year-old Billy Wallace escaped from jailers in Bryan County, and it turns out, it may not have been just a lucky run.

Wallace's girlfriend, Jessica Miller, and another teenager also face charges. They join Wallace behind bars in the jail that's caught so much attention over the past few years because of escapes.

The sheriff says, "Basically what you have is a guy running into a hornets' nest because there was every law enforcement agency in this part of the world looking for him, and moving into that area."

Authorities believe Wallace ran from the courthouse, and jumped into a car with Miller and the teen, then raced down Highway 78, but crashed when deputies put out spike strips.

Sheriff Sturch is looking into whether Wallace had the proper restraints on at the courthouse to begin with. All he'll say is they're still investigating.

"Were checking to see how he got loose. Don't know if he was cuffed when he escaped."

If that's the case, it brings up an even bigger issue for Bryan County because just three weeks ago that's how Wallace got away the first time. A jailer didn't keep him in handcuffs and leg irons. That jailer was fired.

"It's the same old thing. He didn't get out of jail. He ran out of the courthouse, were trying to find out why and how."

For now Wallace remains locked up in the Bryan County Jail awaiting more charges.

Fifteen minutes and then the rest of his life in prison. Tough but fair.

Two Escape Private Prison (with super TV graphic)
WVUA-TV, Tuscaloosa, Alabama:

Police are searching for two prison escapees in, and around, Perry County. According to the Uniontown Police Department, Joshua Southwick and Ashton Mink escaped at about 5:30 Monday morning from the Perry County Correction Center.

Authorities say they suspect the two cut through 3 fences at the facility. The Alabama Department of Corrections leases bed space from the private facility in Uniontown.
Southwick was serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to a 2003 murder-for-hire case in Limestone County. Mink was serving time for an attempted murder conviction in Madison County in 2005. He is not scheduled for release until 2028.

Residents in the area are on edge, the two men are considered, by police, to be armed and dangerous.
“I really didn't know what to think. I just started locking my doors and I told my kids to come in the house,” said Uniontown resident Clifford Coleman to our reporter.

Many people have been calling the Uniontown Police Department, concerned about the two escapees. Most of the calls focus on one question.

“It’s mainly the same question; have they been captured?” said Uniontown Police Department Dispatcher Victoria Wilson. Wilson goes on to say, “One lady called advising that she hadn't been outside and she hasn't even opened her door for anyone. So they're pretty scared.”

Joshua Southwick is a 26-year-old white male. He has brown hair and hazel eyes. Police say he is 5’9” tall and 150 pounds. Ashton Mink is 23-years-old. He is also white with brown hair and green eyes. He’s 5’8” and weighs 165 pounds. Perry County Sheriffs Office tells us the two were last seen wearing orange prison jumpsuits.
If you see them, do not approach the pair. Call police. You can also call the Perry County Correctional Center at (334) 628-8885 with any tips on the escapees’ whereabouts.

The Tuscaloosa News adds: Prison Warden Tommy Buford did not answer phone calls from a Tuscaloosa News reporter Tuesday or Wednesday. A prison employee referred calls to Dick Harbison, the vice-president of Lafayette, La.-based LCS Corrections Services, which owns and operates the prison. The 734-bed facility houses prisoners from Alabama and other states in addition to federal prisoners.

The state’s Department of Corrections does not have oversight of the company’s management or security practices at the prison because it is a private corporation.
The Department of Corrections pays the company $32 a day to house 249 state inmates, less than the $41.71 it costs to house them in a state facility, spokesman Brian Corbett said. He said that the department has not had problems with the Uniontown facility or the company, which housed Alabama inmates in Louisiana because of prison overcrowding between 2003 and 2006.
Until last month, the prison also housed around 80 prisoners from Vermont, but the Vermont Department of Corrections removed those inmates after an investigation into prisoner complaints that they had been injured in fights with other inmates, said Seth Lipshutz, the supervising attorney in Vermont’s Prisoners’ Rights Office.
<--That's Southwick. Looks like Pvt. Pyle from Full Metal Jacket. And Mink: Not scheduled for release until 2028? Then isn't he jumping the gun just a bit? And now we know how to get out of a privately operated prison in Alabama: 1. Be from Vermont, and 2. Get punched (or punch someone else)
in the nose. Or get shanked...

No Blood Was Spilled...
Various reports, San Quentin, California

Some confusion involving a Bloodmobile truck resulted in a brief lockdown at San Quentin Tuesday. There was a blood drive at the prison, after which the truck was let out of the facility without being checked by guards for escaping prisoners.

The truck was there for staff blood donations. No inmates got close to it, corrections officials say. The lockdown lasted for about 90 minutes.


At Least She Didn't Ruin A Cake...
From the Daily Item of Sunbury, Pennsylvania...

A Millville woman who tried to help a co-defendant in a drug ring escape from the Lycoming County Prison has been sentenced to seven years in prison followed by four years of supervised release.

U.S. Middle District Senior Judge James F. McClure Jr. sentenced her Tuesday. ...She admitted she tried to help co-defendant Curtis Perry escape from prison. Perry is awaiting trial in Florida in connection with the Oct. 23, 2003, shooting death in Hialeah of an individual he and co-defendant allegedly thought would be testifying against them in another case.

The escape attempt occurred on April 27, 2006, when Kolk began drilling a hole into a wall that separated her from Perry to whom she was talking by telephone in a visitor’s booth. The Lycoming County prison does not allow contact visits. ...[A] federal prosecutor said she took a drill, bit and hacksaw blade undetected into the prison. Her goal was to make a hole in the thick wall large enough to pass the hacksaw blade to Perry, he said. Kolk did not complete the hole. [She] put the residue from the drilling in a bag and left, the prosecutor said. The hole later was discovered and the matter referred to federal marshals since Perry was their responsibility.

Since the incident, the prison requires all visitors to pass through a metal detector.

Good idea, prison.

Prisoner Gets the Shaft

From KeysNet, Florida

...Deputies say James Dumas, 45, climbed up a maintenance shaft at the Stock Island jail and gained access to a hallway that leads to visitation rooms. He was walking down the hallway when two corrections officers spotted him, recognizing him as an inmate.He was apprehended without incident while still inside the building.

Dumas reportedly told Detective Diane Mimosa that about a week prior to his attempted escape, during maintenance on plumbing in the unit Dumas was being held in, a door to a maintenance shaft apparently wasn't locked properly. Dumas discovered the error and was able to explore the shaft, looking for a way out. He was unable to find any way out using the shaft, but did manage to find his way to a maintenance closet in the visitation hallway.

He said he used pens and a highlighter to alter some of his jail clothing in hopes of looking less like an inmate; he then waited until a visitation time to attempt his escape.

"The corrections officers who spotted him and recognized what was happening did an outstanding job," Sheriff Bob Peryam said. "We will definitely be looking closely at this incident and will be doing everything we can to keep anything similar from taking place."

Dumas is accused of attempted murder in a machete attack last June 2. He's accused of trying to kill Jacob Freeman, 22, at Freeman's Key Haven home.

Working Together Toward a Common Goal

From the Houston Chronicle

MEXICO CITY -- Soldiers and police searched Monday for dozens of prisoners who busted out of a northern Mexican prison with the aid of their jailers as authorities nationwide struggle with endemic police corruption.

The 53 prisoners, including at least 11 gunmen from the Gulf Cartel drug smuggling organization, escaped early Saturday from the prison in the city of Zacatecas. As many as 30 heavily armed gangsters freed the men in a five-minute assault during which the prisoners were presumably simply set free by their guards, Zacatecas Gov. Amalia Garcia said.

Based in cities and towns bordering far South Texas, the Gulf Cartel is considered among Mexico's most powerful and violent groups.

Officials blame the Zetas, who now often act independently of the cartel, for violence, kidnappings and extortion in Zacatecas, throughout eastern and southern Mexico and into Guatemala.

...The Zetas, gunmen allied with the Gulf Cartel...have become notorious for jailbreaks like that of Zacatecas on Saturday, having raiding prisons in at least four states to rescue arrested colleagues. In Saturday's case the assailants, some dressed as police, arrived in more than a dozen vehicles, quickly entered the prison and left with their prisoners.

USAToday has more, about videos of the escape:

...The video shows bored-looking guards watching TV before one of the prisoners opens an unlocked gate to his cell block and then orders a group of inmates to follow him into the guards' room. The guards step aside, making no moves to stop the escape, until they are shoved into the cell block by the inmates, some of them armed. Prisoners then cover the camera with a blanket. Meanwhile, a second security camera outside the prison filmed the arrival of gunmen in police cars with flashing lights shortly before 5 a.m. Two guards run to open the front gate without questioning the drivers.

This is just one event in the very bloody and unfunny civil war going on in Mexico between the drug cartels and the government.

Up and Coming Offenders

From the Daily Journal, San Mateo County, California...

...[A] former juvenile hall ward convicted of helping a 17-year old murder defendant escape...now faces prison after his probation officer claims he violated probation five times since being released from custody.

One of the violations filed by the officer alleges Vanher Cho, 19, threatened and battered his mother and elderly aunt at their San Francisco residence May 15. A week later, police arrested Cho, [who is being held without bail]. Even one of the alleged violations could send Cho to prison for the two-year term he avoided after pleading no contest last April to one felony count of aiding and abetting. Although prosecutors sought prison and Cho’s defense asked for the Pathways Mental Health Court program and release from custody, Judge Cliff Cretan placed him on five years supervised probation and one year jail with credit for 187 days.

Under the law, a probation violation can reinstate the original sentence carried by a conviction even if a negotiated plea brought a lesser term. Whether prosecutors push for a stringent sentence will depend in part on the facts of the alleged attack on his family and the nature of the other violations, said Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.

Cho and accomplice Martin Villa Patino, 19, were both charged with aiding and abetting after pushing Josue Orozco, then 17, over a wall surrounding an outside recreation yard at the Youth Services Center on Paul Scannell Drive in unincorporated San Mateo County. Orozco, awaiting trial for the murder of a 21-year-old Redwood City man, pulled himself over the wall using a halogen light set below the 15-foot minimum and slipped through a three-foot hole previously cut in the perimeter fence.

The escape set off a hunt for Orozco, a trio of investigations into the facility’s security and the county’s response and led to criminal convictions for both Cho and Patino. Patino was also charged with acting to further the Sureño gang of which both he and Orozco belonged.

Cho and Patino were at the juvenile hall instead of the adult Maguire Correctional Center in downtown Redwood City because they were finishing juvenile sentences on unrelated charges. Patino, who was transferred to the jail after turning 18, received two years prison for the escape ...and an unrelated assault on a correctional officer while awaiting trial.

Orozco, who when arrested in 2005 at age 14 became the youngest murder defendant charged as an adult in San Mateo county, remained at large from the time of his Feb. 14, 2008 escape until that September when apprehended on suspicion of home burglaries in San Antonio, Texas.

Okay. Let's look at Cho first. He helps a murder suspect escape from detention and gets probation ...which time he uses to allegedly beat up his mother and his aunt. Great call by Judge Cliff Cretan. What does a kid have to do in California to actually go to jail?

That's it for our first blog post. A word about formatting. Instead of spending hours trying to defeat the formatting of news organizations, I go with the paragraph spacing they used. It saves time. Maybe if I get advertising I will try harder. Don't count on it.

Now I gotta get out of here. I will post again when and if there is news. After all, people don't escape from prison every day, do they?

I couldn't delete this ad. Oh well. Sorry there wasn't more payoff for you.