SNOQUALMIE, Wash. — A fifth teen was charged with robbery and kidnapping Friday after escaping from Echo Glen Children's Center in late January.
All five teens were reported to have escaped from the facility around 7:30 a.m. on the morning of Jan. 26. Four of the juveniles have been caught, while one is still at large.
The teens are accused of working together to overpower staff at the children's center and steal the car of a nurse to escape the grounds.
According to court documents, a nurse visited the teens' housing unit on the morning of Jan. 26 to give medication to one of the residents. When the staff member took the resident into a separate room to dispense the medication, another teen followed them. The teens grabbed the nurse's arms, and more residents began to "swarm" around the nurse.
The nurse reported being hit in the face several times while one of the teens went through his pockets, stealing his phone, keys and wallet, according to court documents. One of the teens was holding a knife "and standing in a manner that indicated to [the nurse] that [the resident] would assault him with the knife if he didn't comply," court documents said.
The teens then forced the nurse into the "quiet room" which the teens locked from the outside.
When the nurse took one of the residents into the staff room, a counselor was in the common area with some other residents outside. One resident came over to the counselor, giving her a hug from the side, court documents said. When the residents began attacking the nurse, the teen holding the counselor pinned her arms to her side in an attempt to immobilize her.
After the nurse was locked in the quiet room, several residents forced the counselor into one of the cells and demanded the keys to the living facility, according to court documents. After a struggle, one of the residents struck the counselor on the head and ripped the keys from her hand. The residents fled the cell, allowing the secure door to close, locking it from the outside.
Another staff member arrived for her shift in time to see one of the teens attempting to unlock the door to the living facility and assumed something must have happened to the staff members inside, according to court documents. The staff member called the main office to alert them to the situation when the teens managed to unlock the door.
Two of the teens rushed out, followed by a third who held a knife up to his face and warned the staff member to get back. The teen slashed the knife at the staff member, leaving a two-inch wound on the palm of her left hand, according to court documents. The staff member was then hit from behind as two other teens exited the building and got into a Ford Focus. Five teens fled in the car.
Three of the teens were arrested the next day. Two of them were arrested in Kent and another in Kirkland. Another teen was arrested on Tuesday, Feb. 1 in Kent, where officers also recovered the stolen Ford Focus that was abandoned at a city park.
All of the teens face charges of escape in the first degree, kidnapping in the first degree, unlawful imprisonment, two counts of robbery in the first degree and theft of a motor vehicle.
The teen accused of threatening the nurse with a knife and wounding a staff member also faces charges of second-degree assault.
Two of the teens, aged 16 and 17-years-old, will be charged as adults, according to state law. The King County Prosecutor's Office also made a motion to charge a third teen with a past adjudication for murder as an adult.
Juveniles convicted in adult court, or people convicted of crimes they committed before their 18th birthday, do not face sentencing under adult guidelines, allowing judges to go below the standard sentencing ranges applicable to adults, according to the prosecutor's office.