Boys caught after overnight escape from Forbes youth center

Three found on S.W. Topeka Boulevard.

Three boys were captured early Wednesday a few hours after scaling a fence topped with razor-wire and escaping from a juvenile detention center at Forbes Field, authorities said.

Staff members saw the boys, aged 14 to 16, as they ran from the building's second floor and down a fire escape to the ground, said Ron Miles, regional administrator of the Forbes Juvenile Attention Center. The boys then ran to the fence, topped with razor-wire, and climbed over, he said.

The breakout occurred at about 1:15 a.m. Wednesday, and center officials immediately notified authorities, Miles said. Two Shawnee County sheriff's officers, Cpl. Sam Leone and Deputy Keith Oliver, arrived about 15 minutes later and began searching the area, said Capt. Rick Hladky, sheriff's department spokesman.

At about 4 a.m., Leone and Oliver saw one of the boys sprint across the 7000 block of S.W. Topeka Boulevard, Hladky said. They chased and caught the boy and turned him over to Metropolitan Topeka Airport Authority law enforcement officers.

About 50 minutes later, as Leone and Oliver searched for the remaining two boys, the deputies pulled into the convenience store parking lot on the southwest corner of S.W. 53rd and Topeka Boulevard. There, they noticed a boy peeking around a corner of the building. The officers chased the boy, apprehending him and the third boy behind the business.

Those two also were turned over to MTAA officers, Hladky said.

Miles said the three were taken to a Topeka hospital and treated for minor cuts received as they crawled over the razor-wire.

The boys wore no shoes during their escape. Miles said all inmates at the center remove their shoes at night.

The boys were among 25 inmates staying on the second floor of the two-story building, where short-term inmates are held, Miles said. The first floor, for long-term inmates, holds from 25 to 28 inmates. The center contains from 50 to 58 inmates.

Most of the inmates are from Kansas, Miles said, but he wouldn't say where the escapees were from or whether they had been incarcerated for misdemeanors or felonies.

Miles said "measures would be taken" to prevent future escapes, but he wouldn't say what that would entail.

The privately owned center operates the only boot camp for juvenile offenders in the state.

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