Jail’s Sensors Didn’t Spot Escapees Two Climbed Basketball Hoop, Went Across Roof To Freedom

Motion sensors on the roof of King County’s new jail here didn’t detect two inmates who escaped this week.

The jail is loaded with security equipment and anti-escape measures. But none of it prevented the escape of Kinnick Sanford, 27, and Vanna Rann, 17, Tuesday night.

The two apparently climbed a basketball hoop, cut through a chain-link ceiling over an exercise yard, hoisted themselves to the roof and jumped to freedom.

Sanford was awaiting sentencing after he was convicted last month of first-degree attempted murder for shooting a woman in the parking garage at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport last December. He was described as black, 6 feet 1 and weighing 190 pounds.

Rann, of Seattle, was being held in lieu of $200,000 bail on a first-degree assault charge. He was described as Asian-American, 5-foot-6 and 130 pounds.

A task force of police from Seattle, King County, the state and FBI has mounted a statewide manhunt.

Art Wallenstein, director of the county Department of Adult Detention, said the two men went undetected on the jail roof, which had several operating motion sensors. The men apparently stayed out of range of the sensors, which cover about 60 percent of the roof, he said.

Tom Manning, vice president of the King County Corrections Guild, said officers knew there were problems with the sensor system and had approached jail management about it.

Wallenstein said the original purpose of the sensors was to keep people out, not to keep inmates in.

Sensors to detect activity on the entire roof “would have been nice and would have been helpful, and that’s something we will consider for the future,” Wallenstein added.

The roof also is equipped with several cameras, but it takes an activated sensor to turn them on, he said.

Jail officials found tools on the roof they think the two used to cut the hole, along with eight bedsheets tied end to end in a makeshift rope.

Police say the two men fled to a nearby service station where they took a car, which was found abandoned Wednesday in Renton.

Another inmate also tried to get away but was stopped by a corrections officer.

Last Friday, the NBC TV show “Unsolved Mysteries” aired a story about a prison escapee in Texas who climbed up a basketball backboard on his way out.

Wallenstein said inmates can watch whatever shows they want, but he did not know whether Sanford or Rann had seen the show.