Ladder, Bedsheets Used in Escape, Police Say

Three juveniles, two of them convicted murderers, used a small ladder from a utility room and bedsheets to climb over a 20-foot wall at Central Juvenile Hall last week, according to law enforcement officials. The escapees have not been found.

The escape was orchestrated by Jose Argueta, 17, a Los Angeles street gang leader who threatened one guard with a handgun, officials said. The guard was warned that Argueta had nothing to lose with a life sentence ahead of him.

Chief Probation Officer Richard Shumsky, whose department operates the 620-bed Lincoln Heights facility, said his investigators are still trying to determine how the .45-caliber handgun was smuggled in.

“Given the fact [the guards] were held at gunpoint, it came from somewhere. We don’t know where,” Shumsky said. “This is the first instance where we’ve had hostages taken with a gun.”

Shumsky said that since the July 31 incident, the department has adopted a policy requiring staffers to pass through the hall’s metal detectors, as do inmates and visitors. “There aren’t going to be ladders anymore,” he added.

The 5-foot ladder that Argueta, fellow convicted murderer Marvin Sandoval, 17, and convicted carjacker Fernando Nupiri, 18, used to help them scale the 20-foot wall should never have been available, Shumsky said.

“It was outside policy,” he said. The ladder was being used for an improvement project in the facility. “It is no excuse. Obviously, there was a breach,” Shumsky said.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is slated to vote today on a motion by Supervisor Mike Antonovich asking Shumsky for a plan to prevent future breakouts.

Some law enforcement officers are asking why Argueta, who is known as Lil’ Crazy, was not in Men’s Central Jail.

Shumsky said at present there are 42 beds for juveniles in the main jail. “It is always full or close to full,” Shumsky said.

That left Argueta and Sandoval, who was convicted July 29 of murdering a man he mistook for a rival gang member, in the juvenile hall’s Special Housing Unit. Those in the unit known as the SHU live separately from other juveniles in custody.

Staffers are armed with pepper spray and an alarm system, but have no guns, Shumsky said.

“Ultimately, the LAPD is the only response to an escape,” said one law enforcement source. Although the hall has metal detectors, sources say, visitors are not always thoroughly searched, and known street gang members and parolees are often among those allowed inside as visitors.

About 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, Argueta asked a guard to unlock his room door to allow him to get a drink of water. Instead of going to the water fountain, Argueta made his way to the office of the Special Housing Unit, where he produced the gun. He took a guard’s cell phone and wallet and ordered him to lie on the floor.

When a second guard entered the office, Argueta told him, “I’ve got nothing to lose; I’m a lifer,” according to a police report. Argueta faced 50 years to life.

Argueta then directed a third guard to unlock the rooms of Sandoval and Nupiri. As that guard lay on the ground, Sandoval demanded to know where the guard’s cell phone was. The guard denied having a phone, but Sandoval found it in a bag. Sandoval then kicked the guard in his right side, telling him, “I should kill you,” according to the police report.

Argueta handcuffed the three guards, forced them into the “utility closet,” admonishing them to “not make any noise” unless they wanted to be killed.

The three juveniles took the keys from their guards and went through a door that gave them access to the 20-foot outside wall.

The three then used the ladder they found in a utility room to scale the wall. With the aid of bedsheets tied like ropes, they climbed over the razor-wire-topped wall.

“They descended with the bedsheets. The bedsheets were found dangling from outside,” Shumsky said.

LAPD officers from the Hollenbeck Division were alerted shortly before midnight and quickly brought in dogs and a helicopter to conduct a search of the area that sits in the shadow of County-USC Medical Center.

A short while later, a car was stolen in the neighborhood, and was later recovered in the neighborhood frequented by Argueta’s gang, law enforcement sources say. Investigators suspect the car is connected to the escape.