Pair Arrested After Escape From Geiger Facility

Two inmates at the Geiger Corrections Facility hopped the fence Friday, drawing a dragnet of law enforcement officers before they were eventually apprehended.

Adam Asbell, 24, and Rodger Dawt, 22, were captured at gunpoint four hours after the escape. Law enforcement officers found them at 1700 S. Assembly, less than two miles from the corrections center.

“They put pressure on the prisoners until they ran aground and officers were able to take them into custody,” said Spokane County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Dave Reagan.

The escape began when two inmates ran from a 100-inmate procession filing toward the prison dining hall. Prison employees saw the two men going over an 8-foot barbed wire fence at 1:50 p.m, Director Mike Pannek said.

Geiger is a minimum- and low-level security detention center east of Spokane International Airport. Offenders held at Geiger are generally considered to pose little risk to the community.

Asbell and Dawt were not, at the time of the escape, considered a threat to public safety, Pannek said.

However, the escape drew what officials characterized as an exceptionally large response from law enforcement agencies. A dragnet of 37 law enforcement officers from the county Sheriff’s Department, Washington State Patrol, Spokane Police and Corrections Department set up a containment area around Geiger as they searched for the escapees.

Responding officers were cautioned by dispatch that the escaped convicts had a history of violence, Reagan said.

The escapees, awaiting trial on misdemeanor charges, have charges in their records alleging assault and intimidation with a weapon, Pannek said. But these charges were never brought to trial.

The pair still sported their brown prison garb when they were arrested.

Both were booked into Spokane County Jail on a charge of escaping a corrections facility.