A prisoner’s New Year’s Eve escape from a Rhode Island detention facility was “easily preventable, inexcusable, and directly related to a series of human errors,’’ according to a report released Friday.
James Morales escaped from the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls and eluded police for five days before his capture in Somerville on Jan. 5.
Three staff members were placed on paid administrative leave because of the incident and one officer resigned, but none of the workers are expected to face criminal charges, according to the preliminary report issued by the facility’s board of directors.
Morales, 35, escaped during recreational time after a guard searching him failed to notice a bedsheet hidden in Morales’s winter coat and a crude, handmade cutting tool in his shoe. He was then left unattended in the yard.
Just before 6:30 p.m., Morales climbed atop a basketball hoop backboard and cut through a chain-link fence. He made his way through razor wire and along the rooftop, hiding periodically behind mounted equipment, before tying the sheet to a lightning rod cable and jumping to the ground. After scaling another fence, he was free.
The 7 p.m. bed check was not conducted — a violation of policy — and another bed check later that night somehow did not note Morales’s absence.
It was 11 p.m. before anyone noticed he was gone. Police were not called until 11:42 p.m.
Since the incident, the report said, steps have been taken to boost security, including removing all freestanding basketball hoops, increasing metal detection for prisoners entering recreation areas, and monitoring them continuously when they are in the yard.
The board defended staffing at the facility, where 29 employees were working at the time of the escape, and pledged full support of the facility.
“We believe in the many men and women that come to work each day committed to improving the level of care, custody, and control that we provide,’’ said the board of directors in the report. “We will root out those who are not.’’
The Central Falls mayor, police, and city clerk did not respond to requests for comment Friday night.
Morales, a former Army reservist, was being held in Rhode Island while awaiting trial for allegedly breaking into a Worcester armory in 2015 and stealing weapons. At the time of that crime, he was wearing a GPS monitoring bracelet while awaiting trial on child rape charges that originated in Cambridge.
He faces a charge of escaping from federal authorities.
Globe staff writer John R. Ellement contributed to this report. Mina Corpuz can be reached at mina.corpuz@globe-.com. Follow her on Twitter @mlcorpuz. Nicole Fleming can be reached at nicole-.fleming@globe.com.
