Saturday, April 25, 2009

Three State School Residents Escape, Get Caught

link to article

Updated: April 23, 2009 09:19 PM

CORPUS CHRISTI - Despite tightened security, three residents managed to escape from the Corpus Christi State School.

One resident didn't make it past the fence, but two others wandered for several miles before they were spotted.

At least one of the residents has a history of assault, however, all three residents are back inside the state school Thursday night.

Each individual cases will be evaluated, as well as the security situation at the campus.

An employee thought he saw someone leave, so they did a head count and realized that three were missing. One was immediately found inside the fence, but the other two were spotted at Port and Agnes an hour later about two and a half miles away by a state school employee.

At that point, one of them gave up but the other ran into Rose Hill Cemetery. Police were called out, but they couldn't track him down.

State officials said he eventually turned up at Cole Park and by 1:30 a.m. all were back at the campus. The state school is not a jail but it's obviously intended to be a secure area for the residents that are placed there by a court.

Following the investigation into fight clubs here at the campus, more staff was added to provide better supervision and security.

Wednesday night's incident will lead to another re-evaluation of whether the amount of security and staff is adequate.

"They just look at all the, kind of, internal workings whenever any type of incident occurs on campus. And then, if there is an allegation of any sort that there was staff neglect involved, then that would be reported to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services for them to investigate as well," Cecilia Federov said.

The man who didn't give up when confronted by a state school employee near Rose Hill Cemetery was 42-year-old Martin Gutierrez.

He was arrested for assault back in 2005, but found incompetent to stand trial last March and sent to the Corpus Christi State School.

One other troubling part of the story Wednesday night is that according to Corpus Christi police, they weren't notified about the escape until about an hour after the three were found to be missing.

They were only called when one of them refused to give himself up.

Online Reporter: Bart Bedsole