Fugitive Escapes From Guard at Hospital : 3rd Inmate to Flee in 2 Months Captured After Wrecking Truck

A 27-year-old fugitive from Colorado escaped from the Sheriff’s Department’s custody at UC San Diego Medical Center on Friday, the third such escape from a hospital room in less than two months.

In each case the inmate was guarded by unarmed security guards employed by the Wackenhut Corp., which is under contract to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.

The prisoner who escaped Friday, Mark McGinley of La Mesa, eluded two Wackenhut security guards but was arrested after crashing a stolen truck into a tree across the street from the San Diego Police Department’s Western Division substation, according to Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Bob Takeshta.

Jail officials had considered McGinley to be an escape risk, which is why he was being guarded, Takeshta said.

According to police, the escape occurred about noon when, with one of the guards apparently at lunch, McGinley asked the other guard for permission to take a shower. McGinley then asked for shampoo and, when the guard left to get it, escaped from his 10th-floor room by taking a stairway that leads outside.

At the same time, 29-year-old Lakhwinver Fingh of Poway stopped his pickup truck in front of the hospital to drop off an acquaintance. When Fingh opened his door, McGinley pulled him out of the truck and drove away in the vehicle.

A San Diego police officer later spotted the truck and attempted unsuccessfully to pull it over, initiating a chase that ended when McGinley crashed the truck into a tree across from the police substation, at Friars Road and Gaines Street.

McGinley, who is wanted in Colorado for parole violation, was held on suspicion of escape, auto theft and robbery, police said. After being treated for a bruised right knee at UCSD Medical Center, McGinley was transferred to Physicians & Surgeons Hospital, where he remained under guard--by a sheriff’s deputy--Friday night.

Arrested Sunday on suspicion of robbery and auto theft, McGinley was taken to UCSD Medical Center for kidney dialysis, police said.

Three days earlier, paramedics had taken McGinley from a private residence to Alvarado Hospital for treatment of kidney problems. Despite being warned by the head nurse that he still required medical attention, he left the hospital Sunday. Police arrested him later that day.

In light of Friday’s escape, Sheriff’s Department administrators will likely review their policy of using the unarmed Wackenhut guards to watch over prisoners being treated at hospitals, Takeshta said.

The Sheriff’s Department this year will pay Wackenhut $410,000 to provide security for hospitalized prisoners, according to county officials.

Friday’s escape was the third this year involving Wackenhut guards.

On Jan. 29, a man in custody at Mercy Hospital escaped with the help of his girlfriend, who told the guard that she had a weapon and a bomb in a sack, according to sheriff’s deputies. The prisoner had been arrested on suspicion of robbery and narcotics and weapons violations. The couple kidnaped the guard and later released him in Tijuana.

Another man guarded by a Wackenhut guard escaped Jan. 3 from Physicians & Surgeons Hospital by jumping out a fourth-floor window, Takeshta said. That man was being held on narcotics charges.