The Associated Press
YAKIMA, Washington- Nine maximum security inmates escaped from a county jail by climbing down a rope made of bed sheets, authorities said.
Five were quickly recaptured before they could leave the jail grounds Friday, said Will Paulakis, a Yakima County Corrections Department division chief.
Authorities were searching for the other four, including a 20-year-old man scheduled to go on trial Dec. 5 on charges of second-degree murder, another charged with burglary, and two in custody on second-degree assault allegations.
The inmates apparently escaped shortly after 5 p.m. through the ceiling of a cell in their unit on the top floor of the four-story main jail, said Cpl. Ken Rink, a Corrections Department spokesman.
They gained access to the roof and used bed sheets to slide down to the roof of the adjacent one-story jail annex, then jumped to the ground. A similar approach was used in a 1994 jailbreak.
The jail breaks follow a number of high profile escapes from U.S. jails over the past two weeks.
Earlier this month, two convicted murderers escaped from the Iowa State Penitentiary and were recaptured days later. In Tennessee, authorities recaptured two inmates who escaped from a Louisiana prison and took advantage of sympathy for Hurricane Katrina victims to pass themselves off to University of Tennessee students as fraternity brothers who had been displaced by the storm, police said. The pair had spent their time dating coeds and partying on the campus.
In another daring escape that led to the firing of one deputy and the disciplining of eight others, a Texas death row inmate donned civilian clothes and strolled out of a downtown Houston jail on Nov. 3 and was recaptured on Nov. 6 in Louisiana.
In the Washington escape, one inmate was recaptured on the main jail roof, three were caught on the annex roof and a corrections officer spotted the fifth standing on the ground and tackled him, Rink said.
No injuries were reported.
The jail is located near the old train station in downtown Yakima, in central Washington. Some streets were blocked off in the area after the 5:20 p.m. escape, and officers asked nearby businesses to be on alert.