SNOQUALMIE, Wash. — Authorities said the three juveniles who escaped from the Echo Glen Children's Center in Snoqualmie Sunday evening are back in custody.
A caller alerted authorities at around 6:15 p.m. about juveniles who escaped the detention center. This sparked a multi-agency search that included K9 teams and drones searching the area for the 16- to 17-year-old escapees.
Hours after the teens escaped the detention center, the King County Sheriff's Office confirmed the missing juveniles were back in custody just after 8:30 p.m.
The Washington Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF), which runs Echo Glen, released a statement Sunday night, saying in part, "No staff or youth were injured during the incident."
Echo Glen staff found the first juvenile within minutes after the escape, according to the sheriff's office.
The second juvenile was found at 8:02 p.m. The third juvenile was found in the woods southwest of the main campus at 8:32 p.m., according to DCYF.
The King County Sheriff's Office told KING 5 that the three escapees have since been rearrested by police, and that all three of them were taken to the King County Children and Family Justice Center to face new charges.
Prior to their capture, the City of Snoqualmie sent an ominous message via X, formerly known as Twitter, to its thousands of residents, reading, "Secure your homes."
This incident comes after a long line of other escapes that prompted vows of action by officials. Echo Glen has grappled with escapes for more than a decade, but this one marks the fourth in just a two-year span.
Seven teens escaped the center earlier this year. A KING 5 investigation found that senior administrators at Echo Glen Children’s Center were warned of a possible escape in the days before seven teenagers with violent criminal backgrounds escaped.
As they made their escape, the teens ambushed a staff member and stole her car to flee from the state-run juvenile rehabilitation facility on May 28, according to police. The incident led to a regional manhunt for the boys - two of whom were serving time for murder.
But in the aftermath of the incident, some employees who were working that night complained that their bosses at DCYF failed to do enough to prevent it, according to a review of police interviews and body camera recordings.
One warning of a potential breakout came from a parent of a teenager inside the Snoqualmie-based detention center. The parent notified officials that the youth were hatching an escape plan, according to a review of law enforcement records and internal emails from DCYF.
Around the same time, Echo Glen leaders became suspicious of a security breach at the front gate of the medium-maximum security facility. Emails show on May 24, a staff member reported that a group of outsiders parked next to the Echo Glen gate and waved a gun at the departing employee before flashing their lights and speeding off.
The incident prompted an associate superintendent at the facility to notify local police of a potential threat – two days before the seven teens broke out. The manager warned the Snoqualmie police chief via email on May 26 that a teenager in Echo Glen’s custody “may attempt to escape today or this weekend,” according to a copy of the record obtained through a public disclosure request to the Snoqualmie Police Department. The teenager named in the email was one of the seven who successfully escaped days later.
Because inmates were assaulting staff to steal their cars, DCYF Secretary Ross Hunter told KING 5 in October that the agency recently started requiring staff to lock up personal property such as car keys when on the job.
He added that they would use part of $8 million in funding from the legislature to build a fence around the facility's perimeter. Hunter also said, however, that a complex special permitting process would still need to be completed before they can make progress on the fence.