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Quick work captures 3 teens
By BILL VARIAN © St. Petersburg Times, published October 3, 2000 LECANTO -- Three teenagers escaped from the maximum-risk Cypress Creek juvenile detention center Sunday after shimmying underneath a perimeter fence and running, authorities said. Two of the teens were captured within an hour of the report of the escape, shortly after 8 p.m., after more than two dozen Citrus County Sheriff's deputies swooped into the area. The third was found perched on a branch of a tree north of State Road 44 and east of County Road 491 after heat from his body was detected by an infrared device used by a deputy in a Sheriff's Office helicopter. Authorities are investigating how the teenagers, one of whom was being held on a sexual battery charge, got out of a secured detention center building. It was the first escape from Cypress Creek, which houses up to 100 of the state's most hardened juvenile criminals, since it opened in 1995. "I'm very proud of the job our men and women did," said Sheriff Jeff Dawsy, who showed up at an emergency command center on SR 44 after the escape was reported. "They locked it down pretty quickly." If the Sheriff's Office had reason to celebrate, the incident places another black mark next to Cypress Creek and the corporation that runs it for the state, Correctional Services Corp. The Sarasota-based company is under pressure from the Department of Juvenile Justice to improve conditions at Cypress Creek after scoring only marginally satisfactory marks on a 1999 evaluation. A review team from Juvenile Justice was at Cypress Creek only last week to tour the facility in order to prepare its next annual quality assurance report. The prior evaluation gave Correctional Services poor marks in several areas, faulting Cypress Creek for a lack of order and poor documentation of serious incidents such as fights. One example cited was the discovery of a teen hiding in a ceiling compartment. Phone calls to Cypress Creek were referred to Correctional Services corporate headquarters. A message left there was not returned. A Juvenile Justice spokeswoman declined to say how the escape will affect Cypress Creek's evaluation, but said it likely will be noted. The spokeswoman, Diane Hirtz, said the incident will be investigated by the department's inspector general, and a report prepared. "I think it's fair to say that staff supervision will be a critical component of the inspector general's investigation in the escape," Hirtz said. "Obviously, the juveniles there do represent a risk to public safety, otherwise they wouldn't be there. So we're very concerned when something like this happens. "We'll make every effort to make sure it doesn't happen again," she said. The three escaped juveniles were identified by the Sheriff's Office as Tracy Prater, 19, and Jonathan Durden, 17, both of Bradenton, and David Taylor, 18, of Jacksonville. Prater was jailed at Cypress Creek on a charge of sexual battery. Durden was facing grand theft charges, and Taylor was at the center on grand theft auto charges. Both Prater and Taylor were taken to the Citrus County Detention Center, the adult jail next to Cypress Creek on West Woodland Ridge Drive. Cypress Creek does house some adult-age criminals who were arrested when they were 18 or younger. Because he is still a juvenile, Durden was turned over to Juvenile Justice. The Sheriff's Office received a call about the escape from Cypress Creek at about 8:20 p.m. Sunday. About 25 deputies responded, forming a perimeter around the juvenile prison off of County Road 491. Deputies notified about 40 residents of the escape, urging them to keep their doors locked and lights on, and to stay inside. Michele LoFaro -- whose husband, Steve, saw the three young men running on South Redwood Terrace while taking out the trash and alerted deputies -- said she recalls that six years ago five men escaped from the adult jail. "I don't like it," she said. LoFaro told deputies that the young men headed northwest, and shortly after 9 p.m. deputies aided by dogs found two of the teenagers about 100 yards apart in the woods east of CR 491 and south of SR 44. Deputies continued to patrol neighborhoods immediately north of Cypress Creek while a helicopter combed the woods from above, using a spotlight and a Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) device. The FLIR picked up a hot spot about 100 yards off the road. Deputies responded and found Taylor in a tree. John Husowitz, a retired salesman and 22-year resident of the neighborhood north of Cypress Creek, said he was never concerned after deputies alerted him of the escape. "I don't think they're going to hang out that close," he said. "This is the first place the cops come to look for them."
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