Once again, Morgan Hill Police officers and Sheriff
’s Office deputies are searching for an inmate of the William F.
James Boys Ranch after another escape at the county facility
Thursday afternoon.
Once again, Morgan Hill Police officers and Sheriff’s Office deputies are searching for an inmate of the William F. James Boys Ranch after another escape at the county facility Thursday afternoon.
The inmate was still believed to be on the run late Friday afternoon according to Bill Fu, a public information officer with the Santa Clara County Probation Department, and a source inside the Boys Ranch, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the inmate had not been apprehended.
“According to our information, one 17-year-old minor escaped and has not been located,” Fu said Friday.
Fu said authorities are investigating how the inmate escaped, but did not have any information late Friday afternoon.
Since January a total of 18 boys have escaped from the ranch in nine separate incidents.
The latest escape occurred at approximately 4pm Thursday, according to Morgan Hill Police Cmdr. Joe Sampson.
“We were notified of the escape a little after 5pm,” Sampson said Friday. “We were informed the escape had occurred nearly an hour prior to notification. Our dispatchers then sent out a be on the lookout request for the three males last seen walking on Highway 101 near Dunne Avenue, still wearing ranch clothing. We sent our officers out to search the area.”
Sampson said officers were unable to make contact with the Sheriff’s Office deputies who also were searching for escaped inmates, but was later informed that deputies had captured the teens in the Target store in Cochrane Plaza shopping center.
It appears as though the MHPD’s information was incorrect, according to Fu. He said only one inmate had escaped the facility Thursday and was still at large Friday afternoon. The Boy’s Ranch employee confirmed the information provided by the probation department was correct, but would not provide additional details on the escape. The director of the camp was unavailable for comment Friday.
The probation department was told that a Sheriff’s Deputy called the ranch at approximately 3:30pm Thursday to ask if an inmate was missing. Shortly after the call, an off-duty ranch employee called the ranch to report seeing a ranch inmate near the Target store.
Ranch staff then determined that the 17-year-old was missing, Fu said, and the Sheriff’s Office and MHPD were notified.
“At this time, we are investigating why we were not aware until the phone calls that the minor was missing,” Fu said. “The final report on this incident is not yet complete.”
Communication between the ranch, the probation department and local authorities has also been a problem in the past. Delays in notifying agencies after the escape occurred prompted Probation Department officials to create new policies for the ranch, one of which requires notification within 20 minutes of an escape.
The spate of escapes in the early months of the year prompted worried residential neighbors of the ranch to request tightened security. Local city, county and law enforcement officials arranged meetings with neighbors and included Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage, who said he was making ranch security his personal concern.
To solve the problem, Santa Clara County Supervisors originally considered purchasing a GPS bracelet system that would allow inmates to be tracked by satellite, but ditched the idea, which would have cost $400,000, when it was discovered that GPS sensors would not alert guards until more than six minutes after the electronic boundary had been crossed.
In May, county supervisors decided to spend $890,000 on a security fence to enclose ranch buildings and a recreation area of the 50-year-old ranch on Malaguerra Avenue. The 12-foot high, 4,000-foot chain-link fence is scheduled to be completed by September.
