Sometimes, it is just better to face the music than to try to avoid punishment. Usually, running from your problems only compounds them. While a couple of Oklahoma prisoners seized an opportunity to escape, several others seemed to grasp that joining their fleeing counterparts could only complicate their already challenging situation.
Last week, a private prison transport company, Prisoner Transportation Services of Nashville, Tennessee, was delivering inmates to various agencies in the western and northern United States. The transport van stopped at Weatherford Regional Hospital, about an hour west of Oklahoma City, to drop off one or two prisoners who appeared ill. Guards left eight other inmates unattended in the van. Two prisoners, Lester Burns and Michael Coleman, took advantage of the opportunity to kick through a partition and move to the front of the vehicle, which was left running with the keys in the ignition so that the air conditioner would remain running for the unguarded inmates as they waited in the van.The two men drove the van for about a mile before fleeing on foot.
Six other inmates remained with the vehicle, and one, Joshua Silverman, called police to report the escape. Silverman, who is not from Oklahoma, could not identify the prisoners' location for the 9-1-1 dispatcher. Silverman offered to try to go to a corner to flag down officers, but expressed his fear of being shot by responding police. He stayed in the van and remained on the phone until a SWOSU park ranger discovered them.
When police found the van, a 12-gauge shotgun was inside the vehicle.
Burns and Coleman were finally apprehended after an intensive manhunt, which Tulsa's KWTV reports as taking 7 hours, including 80 law enforcement officers, and costing $10,000.
Burns was being held for nonpayment of child support and Coleman was held on an assault charge. Typically, these are relatively minor offenses, and escaping custody is sure to exponentially lengthen their sentences.
Silverman is held on a drug charge and has prior convictions for disorderly conduct, bail jumping, and drug manufacturing. Other prisoners transported in the van included sex offenders. However, the six inmates who remained with the vehicle were smart enough to sit tight and not do anything to add to their criminal records or lengthen their sentences.
Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokesman Jerry Massie told the Associated Press that the incident never would have happened if it had been an Oklahoma state transport vehicle: "It's DOC policy: You don't leave them out of your sight." Oklahoma DOC policy also requires all offenders to be considered high-risk during transport, and transporting officers are not allowed to stop the vehicle "for any unnecessary purpose."
