MARYSVILLE – Jail Cmdr. Wendy Wade doesn’t know how it happened. Well, she does know, she just has a hard time believing it.
The policies are all in place. Jail inmates are supposed to be counted four times a day, and when they are taken to and from different parts of the facility.
Still, an inmate escaped Sept. 22, and it wasn’t noticed until 44 hours later when his attorney came to see him.
An internal investigation is continuing, but Wade said some changes already have been made. Such as the door where Vasquez escaped out of is now locked all the time.
Wade said she wants to make sure custody officers understand procedures so no interpretation is needed.
“It will take the guess work out of it,” Wade said, adding she wants to make sure they are trained correctly. “The jail inmates need to be where they are supposed to be.”
Rhyan Vasquez was part of a group of nine that was taken from the cell area to a visitation area for a bible study upstairs at the Public Safety Building. A chaplain leads the studies for about an hour.
Wade said Vasquez is known to law enforcement because he’s in and out of jail a lot so he may have known about the bible studies. The visitation area is near the video courtroom, where inmates often appear in-custody before a judge. Vasquez was able to back out of an unsecured door used by employees, surveillance footage shows.
Vasquez then had to go downstairs to the first floor and walk out a back door where police cars are often parked. However, things were going just right for Vasquez as all of the officers working were out on patrol.
The 19-year-old was recaptured by police within days.
“We know who he is – he’s a frequent flyer for us,” Wade said, adding police interviewed people he knows. “We were just a few steps behind him.”
Wade said police were determined to get him back into custody quickly.
“It was all hands on deck to get him back,” she said. “There’s no way we were going to let this guy walk around.”
Vasquez was due to be transferred to Snohomish County Jail to be booked on first-degree robbery, in which he allegedly punched an acquaintance and stole his phone, wallet and other belongings.
Vasquez is being held on $200,000 for the robbery and $50,000 for the escape.
This is the first time in 25 years that anyone has ever escaped from the jail, although inmates have escaped from the hospital and even police cars. The jail has 57 beds that have a 90 percent occupancy rate. Inmates arrested on misdemeanor charges are held for up to 90 days.
“This is a huge shock for us,” Wade said.
