Movies have always made prison breaks seem so elaborate. You have to build a tunnel and coordinate helicopter landings, and build a dummy that you could shove in your sheets to make you look like you’re still in bed when you’re actually outside the walls, tasting sweet freedom.
You don’t need any of that.
All you need is to be a criminal who gets transported through Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, or Sea-Tac for short, where two prisoners have escaped police custody this year alone.
Two Prisoners Have Already Pulled off Escapes at the Same Seattle Airport This Year
This week’s escapee was 20-year-old John Nino.
Picked up in New Mexico on a warrant for skipping out on meetings with his community corrections officer, Nino was being flown back to Washington to face a second-degree robbery charge. But before he could be handed over to the Department of Corrections, he managed to escape.
He was last seen racing across some railroad tracks near Highway 99, sporting a red coat and gray sweatpants, looking like he was out for a casual jog instead of the focal point of a manhunt.
There must be something in the air at Sea-Tac, some indescribable vibe that stirs a prisoner’s yearning for freedom.
How else could you explain the fact that this is the second time this year a prisoner has escaped custody there? Back in May, 29-year-old Sedric Stevenson escaped from the same airport. He slipped away from custody and stayed off the radar for more than six weeks before finally getting nabbed.
The two escapes raise some questions about what kind of security procedures are in place during prisoner transports through Sea-Tac, like “are there any at all?” and “is everyone just winging it?”
Lack of training, poor protocols, or maybe just a whole lot of bad luck. Whatever it is, something clearly isn’t working when something that’s never supposed to happen happens twice in a matter of months.
The post This Seattle Airport Somehow Let Two Prisoners Escape This Year appeared first on VICE.
