By Bob Walsh
A year ago Eric James Abril was a guest of the Placer County Sheriff's Office. He was accused of killing a person he was holding hostage and shooting two others in April of 2023 in a stand-off with the cops. On July 9 he was housed at Sutter Roseville Medical Center in Roseville due to various medical issues where he was guarded by one sheriff's deputy, who was often not in the room. Abril escaped and was out for 33 hours, costing the county over $100,000 in overtime.
The
Placer County Civil Grand Jury has just issued their report on the
escape. They faulted various procedures, protocols, and training
issues for the escape. The Grand Jury asserted that there had been both
willful misconduct and negligence.
Among
other things the S.O. had no formal training for deputies on
off-grounds security details or transport details. The prisoner was
wearing a belly chain but was not secured to the hospital bed. He was
supposed to be. The single deputy on security duty was outside of the
room for a total of 27 minutes around the time Abril escaped. The 12
instances including making personal phone calls and chatting up nurses.
Apparently there is a camera on one of the medical devices Abril was
hooked up to that gave a pretty fair record of what was going on and
when. When the deputy left the room for his 13th trip Abril got one of
his hands out of the restrain on the belly chain. On the 14th trip, to
make a head call, Abril beat feet. When the deputy left the area he left
his body armor, spare ammunition and baton behind. Abril took off at
about 3: a.m. and simply ran out of the hospital. He managed to elude
capture for 33 hours.
The deputy is still on the job.
1 comment:
I hate to admit it but hospital guarding usually falls to a rookie jailer or someone old approaching retirement. My wife, a retired Nurse would complain about the guards sleeping while assigned to watching prisoners. (USA)
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