Questions and disbelief still swirl around the escape from the Mower County Jail last Sunday morning.

Saturday, March 31, 2001

Questions and disbelief still swirl around the escape from the Mower County Jail last Sunday morning.

Also jokes. Bad jokes, to be sure.

The story of spilled cereal, a mysterious golf club in the jail, no panic buttons for the jailers, portable radios that weren’t activated, cell locks that could be "jimmied" and opened, many phone calls between jail inmates and their getaway driver and all the other remnants of the events that took place last Sunday are being repeated over and over.

The breakout appeared in USA Today, where Patrick McGarvey, Austin’s city administrator, read about it while on vacation last week in North Carolina.

Others saw it on CNN Headline News broadcasts.

Associated Press wire service reports sent the news everywhere.

The comparisons to Mayberry RFD and Andy and Barney, plus Otis, who came and went from the county jail in the fictional television community, continue to reverberate.

The consternation over the escape still exists even in the law enforcement community.

Not the APD’s jail

Austin Police Chief Paul M. Philipp points out city police do not operate the Mower County Jail.

According to the police chief, his second-in-command, Capt. Curt Rude heard the misnomer that the "police operate the jail" and had to clear up the confused citizen.

Even active-duty police officers and the Austin Fire Department have been drawn into the public’s scrutinization of the jail escape.

Yes. That was an Austin Fire Department truck outside the jail last Sunday morning after the escape. No, firefighters were not involved.

According to Fire Cmdr. Donald Lenz, the department was returning from a call when it received a call from the Austin-Mower County Law Enforcement Center.

The reason: inmates and two wounded jailers were locked inside the Mower County Jail.

When Mower County Sheriff’s Department deputies and Austin police officers learned of the escape, they rushed by stairs to the jail and discovered the door locked and the "master key" to the jail missing.

According to Lenz, the Fire Department maintains keys to all public buildings in a secured storage space at the fire station. Firefighters on duty rushed – by truck – to the LEC located across First Street NW from the fire station and unlocked the door to the jail to allow officers access to the jail.

Eyewitness to escape

The first officers to discover one of the jail escapees lying on the pavement outside the jail window from which he jumped were Scott Modenhauer and Chuck Wesley.

They immediately took the injured escapee into custody and notified dispatchers of the emergency.

However, before the officers came upon the injured escapee lying on the ground, an unidentified civilian saw the men fall from the jail window.

Authorities verify – but do not identify the individual – who was dropping off a friend at the LEC to serve a day in jail when he witnessed the trio fall from the jail window.

The individual and his companion saw the orange-clad inmates exit the second-story window, but drove off without notifying authorities inside the LEC building.

When he returned home, he telephoned the LEC about what he saw. Later, he returned with his companion and dropped him off to serve a Sunday in the Mower County Jail.

What video tape?

As to the videotape of the beatings of the jailers and their run down a corridor in full view of other inmates in their cells, the police chief said, "I haven’t seen it" and the sheriff said, "All tapes, everything we got for evidence, is being reviewed."

Also, the sheriff has refused all media requests to visit the jail and see it for themselves and share the information with citizens.

He also said he was out of town last Sunday when the escape ensued and is not aware of any private citizens who wanted to aid law enforcement in the manhunt for the escapees.

Not proper procedure

— "With serious felons like that, I would have made sure they couldn’t get anywhere near me and I would have told them to back up against the wall. That is if I would have gone into the cell at all."

— "Also with the other jailer knowing her partner was in trouble and even seeing it on the surveillance camera, why didn’t she alert the dispatchers downstairs in the LEC before running down the hall and leaving the doors, two of them, unlocked?"

If that sounds like somebody who has been in the Mower County Jail, it is. Deputies and other officers, who have visited the jail, question the actions of the detention officers.

Although requesting anonymity for the obvious reasons, the suggestion is clear: It’s not the jail that is the problem, but the enforcement of policies and procedures that are in place.

One person, who did not request anonymity is Garry Ellingson, the retired former Mower County chief deputy, who functioned as jail administrator before the position was created.

Today, Ellingson is a new Mower County commissioner.

Ellingson carefully walks a tightrope for what he knows from first-hand knowledge of the jail and its staff and their policies and procedures and his new role as a county commissioner.

Last week after the sheriff appeared before the entire county board to explain how the escape happened and what precautions to ensure the jailers’ safety as well as the public’s, Ellingson, a member of the county board’s building committee, met with jail administrator Bob Roche and Chief Deputy Terese Amazi to hear their concerns about the jail.

"They went over changes they thought should be made last year, when the new budget was being worked on," Ellingson said.

The county commissioner didn’t wait for a full board’s approval. When the Sheriff’s Department representatives said they needed a new door in the jail, – a $5,000 item – Ellingson told them to: "Go ahead and order it immediately and I would tell the rest of the county board later. It was something they needed right now."

Ellingson also said, "I am glad the staff are OK and weren’t seriously hurt" before launching into his observations about the escape and its fallout among the public.

"All the doors in the world don’t mean anything unless property procedure are followed inside the jail," he said.

And who is responsible for ensuring proper procedures are followed in the Mower County Jail.

"Ultimately, the responsibility goes back to the sheriff and you can quote me on that," Ellingson said.

Call Lee Bonorden at 434-2232 or e-mail him at newsroom@austindailyherald.com.