Mental Patient Held in Shooting Escapes

A 24-year-old mental patient arrested last January in the wounding of a police officer and security guard in Pasadena cut through two security fences and climbed another at Patton State Hospital early Tuesday to escape, police said. An all-points bulletin was issued for Tracy Washington, described by Sgt. Dan Hernandez as a paranoid schizophrenic with violent tendencies. Washington was discovered missing at an early-morning bedcheck.

Staff members said they heard a loud noise at 3 a.m. in a dormitory where Washington was assigned but a check failed to detect his absence, Hernandez said. At 6 a.m., attendents discovered that a blanket had been stuffed in the missing man’s bed.

Washington was charged with attempted murder in early January after his arrest by Pasadena police, who said they saw him chasing another man through the Kings Villages housing project and ordered him to stop.

Instead of obeying, police said Washington turned his shotgun on them and fired three times, hitting a police officer in the chest and left arm and a security officer in the leg. Both were treated for minor wounds and released from Huntington Memorial Hospital that same evening, and Washington was captured unharmed.

Washington was found to be mentally incompetent and was sent to Patton for treatment. His status changed on Monday when he was judged mentally competent to stand trial, police said.