Inmate Escapes Sylmar Facility

A 17-year-old gang member convicted of trying to gun down three teenage boys escaped from Juvenile Hall in Sylmar by breaking a window and scaling a razor-wire-topped fence two days before he faced a possible life sentence, authorities said Monday.

Kevin Ruben Gilliam, 17, of Los Angeles had been scheduled to appear at the downtown Criminal Courts Building today, after his conviction on three counts each of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon.

Instead, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Grimes issued a bench warrant for Gilliam after a county probation officer informed her that the youth had escaped shortly before 2 a.m. Sunday.

Gilliam used a ball extracted from a computer mouse to break the window of his hillside dorm room, authorities said. He then sprinted 20 yards and hopped a 16-foot fence to reach a car where at least one accomplice was waiting.

Billy Burkert, detention services bureau chief for the county Probation Department, said there have been eight “serious attempts by juveniles� in the last three years to flee the complex, where about 500 youths are housed. Gilliam is only the second inmate to break out of the 30-acre site during that time. The other escape ended with the boy’s capture a few hours later.

Burkert said Juvenile Hall employees contacted the Los Angeles Police Department within minutes of the escape and that authorities mounted a brief but intense search of the neighborhoods surrounding the complex.

“The LAPD sent a helicopter and a squad car,� Burkert said. “Together with police, our probation personnel also searched the area.�

Probation officials said the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors was told about the escape Monday. But they did not publicize the incident because they believed Gilliam was no longer in the area.

Burkert said probation officials followed department policy by immediately contacting the Foothill Division and the 77th Street Division, which had initially arrested Gilliam.

“If he had escaped on foot, the neighborhood would have been notified immediately,� Burkert said. “But since he was in a vehicle, we didn’t think he was going to hang around.�

But LAPD spokesman Sgt. John Pasquariello said the Foothill Division, which patrols around Juvenile Hall, was not notified of the escape. A patrol car that happened to be dropping off paperwork at the hall learned Gilliam was loose and broadcast the information to other units.

Probation officials also defended the department’s decision to house Gilliam at Juvenile Hall, even though he was tried as an adult. Burkert said juveniles, who must be separated from the general adult inmate population, have a limited amount of cell space in the downtown county jail system and are better off in juvenile detention centers.

Court records show that Gilliam was convicted of a serious crime that made him “unfit� to be tried as a juvenile. During his trial, prosecutors alleged that Gilliam, known by his gang name “Hoodsta Foot,� got out of a white Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme on April 25, 2001, in South Los Angeles and shot three youths with a handgun at close range.

A 15-year-old was shot in the mouth and the others in the arm and buttocks.

After finding Gilliam unfit to be tried as a juvenile, a court commissioner ordered the teenager held in a juvenile detention hall rather than county jail.