|
|
| Escape points to problems at San Quentin |
| By Monterey Herald |
| Published: 01/17/2005 |
|
The San Quentin, Calif., inmate who escaped last week should never have been placed in minimum security because of the severity of pending charges against him. But in a breach of Department of Corrections regulations designed to keep violent offenders from escaping, San Quentin officials put Duane Maurice Polk in the minimum-security "ranch" adjoining the Marin County prison. On Jan. 4, he simply walked away from the dormitory housing. Polk, 33, was sent to San Quentin State Prison in November for violation of parole following an arrest for allegedly assaulting a police officer in East Palo Alto. He also had been named in a $75,000 arrest warrant on domestic violence and assault with a deadly weapon charges in San Jose. Prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon said it wasn't known exactly when Polk escaped because correctional officers check on inmates there only periodically. State corrections regulations say inmates with violent offenses generally aren't eligible for minimum-security settings. Eric Messick, assistant to the warden, added that an inmate with an active warrant with bail of more than $5,000 should not have been placed in the ranch section. San Jose police officer Gina Teeporten said Polk's arrest warrant was active when he was assigned to the minimum-security compound and remains active while he is at large. The warrant was for a June 2004 domestic assault case in which Polk allegedly beat and strangled a woman in front of her 5-year-old child, dragged her across her apartment floor and kicked her in the stomach and head. Troy Ojeda, a corrections counselor at another facility that processes parole violators, Wasco State Prison, said when an inmate has an active felony warrant "you always want to keep them in celled housing in that case, so they can't escape." On Jan. 5, state officials notified the media and law enforcement agencies about Polk's escape. San Jose police said they were surprised that prison officials had not personally contacted them. "We're kind of a little flummoxed. I don't know what CDC procedures there have been in this case," said Lt. Peter Decena, of the San Jose Police Department's domestic violence unit. San Jose police said Polk's warrant was posted Sept. 1 in the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (CLETS), a statewide computer database, and it remains there. Crittendon, the San Quentin spokesman, maintained it did not show up when San Quentin officials ran a CLETS check on Dec. 30, several days after Polk was assigned to the minimum-security compound. Department of Corrections spokesman George Kostyrko said Thursday that Polk's name did show up in the CLETS system before Dec. 30 but he would not elaborate on the type of entry. Corrections investigators have been working around the clock with law enforcement agencies in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties to search for Polk, whose escape was San Quentin's first in five years. Polk's disappearance points to inmate processing problems that have plagued San Quentin and other state prisons for years. Inmate assignments at San Quentin were the subject of hearings last year over a lawsuit in which an inmate case analyst, Kathy DeoCampo, alleged she was the victim of retaliation after warning her supervisors about improper placements. Documents and testimony show that beginning in 2002, dozens of inmates were moved into the main prison before being classified. Two counselors testified that supervisors instructed them to bypass required paperwork called "intake audits." Some San Quentin staff members testified that postponing the paperwork was an appropriate response to an emergency backlog rampant throughout the system, and that inmate and community safety were never compromised. Early in the hearings, a San Quentin official testified that the problem of unclassified inmates turning up in the prison's mainline had been resolved in 2002. |
MARKETPLACE search vendors | advanced search
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
|
Comments:
No comments have been posted for this article.
Login to let us know what you think