Two Smash Window, Flee Juvenile Hall

Two teen-agers used a cot as a battering ram to break a window pane and escape from San Diego County Juvenile Hall on Tuesday, officials said.

The youths--a 15-year-old federal detainee and a 17-year-old accused of murder--broke out five minutes after probation officers had routinely checked the room they shared, said Jim Poe, deputy chief probation officer of juvenile institutions.

The 15-year-old is charged with smuggling people across the border, a U.S. marshal said. The 17-year-old was arrested in the Feb. 16 fatal shooting of a 35-year-old man at a Logan Heights duplex, said Carlos Armour, chief of the juvenile division of the district attorney’s office. Murder charges were filed against the 17-year-old Tuesday, and a detention hearing had been scheduled for Wednesday, Armour said.

The hall, with a capacity of 219 beds, had 405 detainees Tuesday, Poe said. He said that police had asked that the 17-year-old be separated from another detainee who was also being held in connection with the killing and thus was placed in a “less secure room.” The more secure area has an extra fence and reinforced windows.

Poe said the escape comes at a time when the Probation Department is awaiting bids to build a new facility and to upgrade the existing one, which is usually filled beyond capacity.

The officers checked the room at 7:55 p.m., Poe said, but were sent to quell a fight that had broken out in the day room a few feet away.

When they returned to their rounds--about five minutes later--they saw the broken window, looked out and saw the pair running east toward the fence that surrounds Juvenile Hall, Poe said. The boys scaled the fence and disappeared, he said, adding that behind the fence are a hill and Interstate 805.

Sheriff’s Department helicopters and canine units searched but found nothing, Poe said.