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Two boys, 16 and 17, had pushed out a window and left the center. They are stopped in a stolen car in Lee County.
By JIM ROSS and ALEX LEARY
© St. Petersburg Times, published December 12, 2000
LECANTO -- Authorities have detained the two teenage boys who fled from the Brown Schools facility for emotionally troubled adolescents, but one teen was later released.
The boys, ages 16 and 17, left the facility late Friday after pushing out a window -- frame and all -- from a hallway in a residential wing, Brown spokeswoman Donna Burtanger said.
They did so while other residents distracted staff members, leading Brown's management team to suspect a plot that extended beyond the two teens.
"This was planned," Burtanger said.
The teens apparently made their way to the nearby Surrey Place nursing home, where authorities say the boys stole an employee's car.
Law officers in Lee County, where both teens are from, stopped that car for unknown reasons about 5:30 p.m. Sunday. Authorities checked the license plate in their computer and found that the vehicle had been reported stolen, according to an account from the Citrus County Sheriff's Office.
Law officers arrested the 16-year-old and held him on a charge of grand theft auto. The car was impounded.
The status of the older teen was less clear: According to the Lee County Sheriff's Office, he was detained and then released for unknown reasons. No other details were available.
Neither Brown nor law officers have released the teens' names.
Brown was scheduled to complete an internal investigation today and it already has retrained staff, talked to residents collectively and individually, and reported the problem to its state licensing agent, the Department of Children and Families.
"We are aware of the children and we are looking into it," said Renea Smith, a Children and Families spokeswoman in Wildwood.
In July, Brown started using the former Heritage Hospital building as a residential treatment facility for emotionally disturbed adolescents. The children come through the state Department of Children and Families, the social service agency that has hired Brown to serve such clients.
Brown is a private, Texas-based company that operates such facilities elsewhere in the nation.
Some residents are opposed to Brown, in large part because they fear residents will leave the facility and cause mischief. They have filed challenges with the county and in state court concerning the propriety of Brown using the facility under its existing zoning status.
Residents are most worried because Brown is using its Citrus site to house adolescents deemed incompetent to proceed in juvenile criminal court.
Adolescents in that program stand accused of a felony-level crime but cannot proceed any further in court because mental illness impedes their competency.
Lecanto was planned to become the seventh site throughout Florida where Brown could house the children in that program who need residential treatment. But Brown officials, in response to public outcry, later agreed to accept the residents only if they meet other criteria.
These two boys were among 18 children at Brown who were part of the incompetent-to-proceed program, Burtanger said. All told, the facility had 45 residents at the time of the escape.
Burtanger said Brown officials already have installed a special film, called Lexan, to make the windows more secure and prevent another occurrence.
Jennifer Black is a nurse at Surrey Place. She said some coworkers were leaving work at 10:45 p.m. Friday when they heard some noises and saw two kids in the parking lot.
"We knew they were probably from the hill," Black said, referring to the Brown Schools.
Black said she and another employee left about 11:15. It was then that Black discovered her 1982 Buick Regal was missing.
"I was shocked," she said in an interview at Surrey Place on Monday. "That never happens, not here."
She said her purse was in the car and it contained all her identification, her credit cards, bank account information and $200 in cash, which she had withdrawn for Christmas shopping Saturday.
Black, 38, of Citrus Springs, "bummed" a ride to work Monday and said she was told it would be a few days before she got her car back.
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