Two 15-year-old boys escape from juvenile detention center

Two 15-year-old boys escaped from the Spokane County Juvenile Detention Center and were discovered missing early Wednesday morning.

The boys, who were sharing a cell, escaped by pulling out an overhead heating vent and crawling through the opening into a room that houses heating and air conditioning equipment, said Jim Hill, the unit supervisor at the detention center.

From that room, the teenagers were able to get out of the building and flee, sheriff’s spokesman Cpl. Dave Reagan said.

Law enforcement was alerted after the escape was discovered at 3 a.m., Hill said.

Neither Reagan nor Hill would say what charges for which the boys were incarcerated.

Hill called the charges “low-end felonies and misdemeanors.”

Hill said state law prohibits him from releasing any information that’s not part of the boys’ Superior Court files.

Hill couldn’t give descriptions of the boys and didn’t know how they were dressed when they escaped. Officers went to their homes but they had not been found by Wednesday afternoon, Hill said.

The detention staff is conducting an investigation about how the boys were able to escape, but Hill said he doesn’t expect any discipline will be taken against jailers.