Convict Escape Tied to Series of Mistakes : Law Enforcement: ‘To get job done, they cut corners,’ sheriff says, citing staffing and funding problems that contributed to errors resulting in the escape of a high-risk prisoner.

A series of mistakes by Sheriff’s Department personnel led to the escape of convict Johnaton George, who is charged with breaking out of a sheriff’s van and killing a passing motorist Oct. 5 in the Gaslamp Quarter, Sheriff Jim Roache announced Friday.

“In reality, what occurred is that men and women--far too few, far too under-equipped--are required to do too much work on rigid time demands,” Roache said of those in his department. “To get the job done, they cut corners.”

Sheriff’s deputies had transported George 42 times since April, Roache said. In late June, the U.S. attorney’s office warned Sheriff’s Department officials in two letters that George was an escape risk and a warning was noted in writing on the sheriff’s transportation log the next 12 times he was moved.

But on Oct. 5, as George was being moved from the El Cajon courthouse to the downtown Metropolitan Correctional Center, no warning was passed on to Deputy Lydia Werner, Roache said.

Having just returned from a month’s vacation, Werner was pressed into moving George because the transportation unit was 16 deputies below minimum staffing.

The 59-year-old Werner, already into a 14-hour workday, didn’t normally move inmates. Her job, Roache said, was to assign the movement of inmates to courts, jails and hospitals throughout the state.

The supervising deputy who assigned Werner to transport George also was not at his regular job and did not pass along information that George was a flight risk. As a result, Werner transported George without knowing how dangerous he was, Roache said.

Had deputies been familiar with George’s potential to escape, Roache said, he would have been assigned two deputies and been placed in leg chains, rather than just handcuffs and a waist chain.

“It was obviously human error,” the sheriff said. “That transportation deputy forgot to continue the pattern (of notification) and assumed that because Mr. George had been moved other times, everyone must know of his escape potential and risk. That oversight, that error, obviously was a key linchpin that led to the George escape.”

Even with all the safeguards, sheriff’s officials noted that George was determined to escape because he had a handcuff key from MCC. In fact, the marshal’s office passed along a rumor to sheriff’s officials a month before George escaped that he might have a key. George was searched and no key was ever found.

After he was caught, George told detectives that he kept the key in his mouth all day but added no other details. The convict, with a criminal record that includes rape, burglary, lewd acts upon a child and three successful escapes, reportedly told a cellmate that the key had been left lying unattended in the federal jail.

With Werner driving and George sharing the back seat with an inmate in a wheelchair, George opened the handcuffs and began kicking the doors open. Werner stopped the van and tried to keep George inside the van but he jumped out into the heart of the downtown Gaslamp Quarter.

The 6-foot, 240-pound George confront ed a woman and demanded her car keys but she resisted.

Werner ran two blocks, caught up with George and tackled him. George pummeled Werner, took her gun and stopped a taxicab, pointing the gun at the driver. The driver grabbed the gun and the two struggled with the car still moving. George bit the driver in the face, officials said.

Eventually, George came upon a car being driven by Michael (Mick) Champion, who had been watching “Monday Night Football” and playing darts at bars in the Gaslamp Quarter. George stopped Champion’s Honda Civic, shot him in the head and pulled him from the car and drove away after Champion’s companion jumped out of the car, authorities contend.

The escape quickly came to symbolize the random danger of carjacking, a crime on the rise nationally, and exposed the mistakes the Sheriff’s Department made when they transported George from El Cajon to downtown.

On Friday, Roache defended Werner’s actions, saying he might have done the same. She was prohibited by law from shooting a fleeing felon, he said, and would have been criticized had she just let George run away.

“If she had been able to stop that van, get around to the side and held those doors until police arrived . . . we would have been applauding her acumen and judgment,” he said.

During Friday’s press conference, Roache apologized to Champion’s family for the first time since the shooting.

“We’d like to express our condolences and sorrow and apologies to Mrs. Champion,” Roache said. “We would have done everything we could to prevent what happened, but we are human beings. We make mistakes. . . . We’ll try to do a better job next time.”

After the press conference, Roache explained that he did not telephone Pam Champion because it would be “tacky” to do so. “Nothing I could say could make it any better for her,” he said.

The sheriff placed some of the blame on his understaffed department and suggested that more problems could occur in other areas of security if more money is not forthcoming for his agency.

For instance, he said, it would cost $900,000 alone just to have enough deputies and equipment to staff the transportation unit.

“I can never guarantee anyone anywhere that there will not be another escape,” he said.

But the budget problems plague the entire department, he said, not just the transportation department but his communications system, crime lab, law enforcement services, investigations and jails.

“This is the classic case of a system that is overburdened, understaffed and overworked,” he said.

Even while enumerating his problems, Roache announced several steps to tighten security when inmates are transported, even if it means paying overtime or pulling deputies from other assignments.

Deputies are to determine the security risk of everyone who is being moved. If the status of an inmate is unknown, it should be assumed that the inmate is a high-risk escapee. Any escape risk will be bound in leg chains, with two deputies assigned, Roache said.

Roache also is requiring new state training for those in the prisoner transportation detail and will retrofit all vans with new locks to keep them from being kicked out from inside.

Finally, the sheriff wants his system for identifying high-risk inmates logged into a computer to reduce the chance of human error.

No disciplinary actions are planned against anyone in the department, including the deputy who did not note that George had escaped before.

“Come on,” Roache said. “They’re human beings and they’re scrambling to do the best they can. I can take someone’s head off and make them a sacrificial lamb and look for a fall guy, but that’s not productive. It doesn’t change things.”

In accepting some of the blame for George’s escape, Roache also noted that the U.S. marshal’s office provided no warnings about George when he was released to the Sheriff’s Department from MCC.

U.S. Marshal Dick Cameron, in charge of the San Diego office, called Roache’s assertion “a lie.”

“With every writ that was sent on this particular man, we attached copies of letters from the U.S. attorney’s office indicating he was dangerous and the part about him being an extreme escape risk was highlighted,” Cameron said. “And there were always verbal warnings also.

“Everyone knew this guy was a potential escapee. How could the Sheriff’s Department not know?”