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| By Edward Lewis , Citizens' Voice Staff Writer | 10/15/2003 |
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Posted on 10/15/2003 4:55:34 AM PDT by Born Conservative
| State police were kept in dark about escape |
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| Hearing "chatter" over their police radios, state police from the Wyoming and Shickshinny barracks responded to the Luzerne County Correctional Facility Friday night. When the first trooper arrived at about 10:25 p.m., prison guards and a small army of Wilkes-Barre police officers had been searching the grounds of the facility for nearly 45 minutes for two inmates who rappelled 60 feet from the seventh-floor maximum security level. Several police sources said the state police were not called to assist in the search until troopers began to hear a lot of radio "chatter." If state police were called immediately after the escape was discovered, the three-day search for an accused double murderer would have ended quicker, the sources said. "It was a mess there," said one police source. "They (LCCF) have no separate operating procedure on how to deal with an escape. It's in their emergency plan." State police at Wyoming and Shickshinny work closely with the State Correctional Institution at Dallas. If an attempted or a successful escape occurs at SCI-Dallas, state police are automatically called. The policy between the state police and SCI-Dallas was initiated after an August 1999 escape of two inmates at the state prison. LCCF inmates Scott Bolton, 39, and Hugo Selenski, 30, gathered 12 to 15 bedsheets and entered cell 9, a cell that contained a flawed 12-inch by 36-inch window frame. The window frame had a steel bar and a steel mesh screen, and was fastened to the concrete walls with what a police source described as "pins." A window was attached to the frame by caulk. The same window was used in a 1990 escape attempt by Cecil Robbins. Prison sources said cell 9 is notorious with inmates who knew about the window frame's vulnerability. Bolton and Selenski used a broom handle and a bedsheet to pull in the window frame. They knotted the bedsheets See POLICE, page 48 and rappelled 60 feet down the outside of the prison tower. Bolton climbed out first and was pushed by Selenski, causing him to fall 40 feet to a roof of a lower building, Bolton claimed. A lieutenant heard a "thump" on the roof at about 9:40 p.m., said LCCF Warden Gene Fischi. At about the same time, a guard on the second floor saw something outside the window and notified there was an attempted escape. Selenski successfully climbed over razor wire with a mattress and fled, initiating a national three-day search until he surrendered Monday night. Luzerne County District Attorney David W. Lupas has called for a state review of LCCF and its operations. Several police and prison sources said Selenski, who had been jailed since his June 5 arrest on robbery and aggravated assault charges, had asked for Bolton to be his cellmate. Bolton, who was charged twice for escape for walking away from LCCF's work release program, was captured Sept. 11 in Dorrance Township after nearly two years on the run. The two were assigned to cell 18 on the maximum security level. Sources confirmed that Selenski had made statements to other inmates that "this place can't hold me." The sources also confirmed that Bolton had planned the escape. Inmates on the maximum security level were in lockdown until 8 p.m., followed by a two-hour recreation period in the day room. Selenski was observed using the inmate telephone talking to his girlfriend, Christina Strom, at about 8:05 p.m. While inmates mingled under the supervision of four prison guards, Bolton and Selenski gathered the bedsheets and a push broom. A prison source said a broom and other cleaning supplies are stored outside the cell block. Whenever an inmate wants to clean their cell, they have to ask a prison guard for the supplies. The prison source said cleaning supplies are not signed out, and inmates are supposed to be watched when they clean their cells. However, the prison source said it's difficult to watch inmates clean their cells because of the other inmates mingling with one another. "They study every movement a guard makes," the prison source said. "Inmates are not stupid. They know a guard can't be with an inmate for 10 or more minutes while a cell is being cleaned." Fischi said inmates are prohibited from entering another inmate's cell. "There's never been a practice that prisoners can go in anyone else's cell," Fischi said on Monday. "When they go into a cell that's not their own, they are written up with a misconduct." Fischi said the inmate with a misconduct goes before the prison board who determines guilt. If an inmate is guilty, the inmate is locked down for a period of time, Fischi said. Since the escape, security has stepped up by checking cell windows more often and a guard maintains constant watch by walking the perimeter of the facility. |
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This entire story smells to high heaven and there ought to be a federal investigation to see how much help he received from the inside.
And why he was given so much time to remove himself from the area of the prison.
Y' know there are a lot of places I would think to go after escaping from jail, but you gotta be a special kind of stupid to go home after breaking out. (IMHO)
CC
Very true
CC
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