Inmates escaped through plumbing access

Albert Batalona		Warren Elicker		David Scribner

By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer

The search for three Halawa Correctional Facility inmates who escaped Friday continued in the Hau'ula area today and police were also watching the harbors.

The search involves police, state public safety and federal officers. "We're searching in Hau'ula but the manhunt is all through the island," said Assistant Police Chief Boisse Correa.

Correa declined comment when asked if there is any indication that escapees Albert Batalona, 27, Warren Elicker, 25, and David Scribner, 20, may have split up. All three are considered armed and dangerous.

James Propotnick, the state's interim public safety director, today confirmed that the inmates left their cells by removing an access panel leading to plumbing fixtures. "If it was installed correctly," Propotnick said of the panel, "they should not be able to unsecure it unless they had a big tool."

He added, "We found out the hard way that things weren't as they seemed." The panel was installed in 1987, Propotnick said.

There is not much room in the escape route, the public safety director said. "I wouldn't fit," Propotnick said. "Batalona has lost a lot of weight. He had to slim down to do this."

Sources said the inmates made it down to the basement and left through the front-gate area.

"The gate is manned but it may not have been at the time (the inmates were there). But we have a visual of the gate," Propotnick said.

Police have been searching in Hau'ula since Friday, when a car stolen by the escapees was found parked at a shopping center.

Dozens of heavily armed officers converged at the foot of Hau'ula Loop mountain trail last night after a pig hunter reported seeing men behaving suspiciously camping in the mountains. Police did not see anyone in a search for the campsite yesterday but efforts were hampered by rainy weather.

Police stayed in the area overnight "to make sure no one came out," Correa said.

Batalona was convicted of the July 1999 robbery of the Kahala branch of American Savings Bank. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole in October 2000. Elicker was serving a 20-year sentence for a 2001 home-invasion robbery of a Punalu'u couple. Scribner has seven felony convictions. He was serving a 10-year sentence for an October 2002 robbery and escape convictions.