LAPD Asks for Help in Search for Escapee

Los Angeles police are asking for the public’s help in tracking down a convicted gang member who escaped from juvenile hall in Sylmar.

Detectives from the LAPD’s 77th Street station released a picture Monday of Kenneth Ruben Gilliam, 17, of Los Angeles, who slipped out of the Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall on March 10, two days before he was scheduled to be sentenced for the shooting last summer of three boys in South Los Angeles.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich said he would introduce a motion today calling on the Probation Department to report back in two weeks on the circumstances behind the escape. He also will ask probation officials for recommendations on improving security at all county probation halls and camps.

Workers at the Sylmar complex, which houses more than 500 juveniles, have raised questions about security lapses.

Workers and the probation officers’ union have complained that a zero-tolerance policy on the use of force has created an atmosphere in which a worker who touches a young offender, even in self-defense, can expect a disciplinary hearing and possible suspension.

Billy Burkert, the Probation Department’s detention chief, said department policies are meant to strike a balance between security and a desire to treat offenders not as hoodlums, but as juveniles in need of rehabilitation.

Gilliam’s escape was the second at Sylmar in two months.

Authorities said the boy used a part from a computer mouse to break the window of his hillside dorm room, and then scaled a 16-foot fence to reach a car where at least one accomplice was waiting.