Escape From L.A. Station Is Just Latest Sign of Flaws

The escape of a burglary suspect who managed to punch through the wall of a holding cell at the 77th Street Division police station is the latest design mishap at a $40-million facility once hailed for its groundbreaking architecture.

Since the station opened in 1997, police officials have recorded dozens of problems, including lock-down doors that malfunction, a faulty fire alarm system, a defective boiler, leaking roofs, door handles that fall off and broken lock hardware on gun lockers.

The burglary suspect was able to escape early Thursday because the holding-cell walls were constructed of drywall and mesh metal rather than sheet metal or cinderblock, something officials acknowledged Friday was a serious mistake.

Dismayed police commanders immediately shut down the detention area until the cells are reinforced with sheet metal.

The suspect was found Friday, covered in a white substance that authorities believe was drywall dust.

“It definitely could have happened sooner. Fortunately, it was not a murderer who got out,” said Yvette Sanchez-Owens, head of the LAPD’s facilities management office. “They should have used a more permanent type material that was not so easily destroyed.”

Even as the department moved to reinforce the holding cells, finger-pointing was underway.

City Councilman Dennis Zine, a former LAPD officer and member of the council’s Public Safety Committee, said Friday that he was losing patience with the problems at the station.

“We’re going to get the answers one way or another, and if we have to do it with a grand jury investigation, we’re going to do it,” Zine said. “It’s a disaster. It is beyond my comprehension how someone can design a facility and the longer we use it, the more problems we discover.”

LAPD officials admit that their staff and the architects didn’t work well together in designing the holding cells and other parts of the station. It was the first station built in nearly two decades, and officials suspect that the jail’s faulty design was at least in part due to a lack of recent building experience.

“It was the blind leading the blind,” Sanchez-Owens said. “The architect can only do so much. They really rely on the client to tell them what they need. Once it’s out of design, you’re relying on the quality of the contractors.”

The president of the company that designed the building defended its work and questioned whether the problem was actually poor building maintenance by the LAPD.

“The building was well-received when it was finished, but it has to be maintained,” said Gail Kennard of the Kennard Design Group.

The station was praised for its contemporary design when it opened. Light and airy offices replaced noisy squad rooms and sun-splashed balconies and courtyards offered officers and other employees respite from their work.

But the praise ended when police officers starting working out of the building.

“It’s a pretty building aesthetically if you look from the outside,” Sanchez-Owens said. “As far as the interior functionality, it doesn’t work as well as a police station.”

A month ago, detectives asked their superiors for permission to take off their suits and ties and unbutton their shirts because the air conditioning kept failing.

“It felt like it was 120 degrees,” said Capt. Bill Murphy, the patrol commanding officer at the 77th Street Division.

The city will ultimately have to spend $689,500 fixing problems at the station, including $174,573 in the last year, according to a March 21, 2005, memo from the Department of General Services.

By comparison, a police station in North Hollywood built about the same time as the 77th Street station needed $51,520 worth of work between Jan. 10, 2004, and Jan. 10, 2005.

Murphy said even the 77th Street building’s basic layout is problematic.

The station is the only one in the LAPD where the watch commander’s office is relatively far from the front desk.

“Normally, the watch commander is closer, and that’s important because in the lobby you can have disputes, people come in there emotional,” Murphy said. “If you’re close, you’re in a good position to hear the commotion and get involved as a supervisor. Here we’re a good distance away. From a supervision standpoint, that’s not a good idea.”

Murphy would not say exactly how 20-year-old Francisco Puemas escaped from the holding cell. “We’re in the business of keeping people in jail,” he said. “I don’t want to tell anybody, ‘Hey, this is how you escape.’ ”

Still, Murphy expressed grudging respect for Puemas as an escape artist.

“We’ve had literally thousands of people in those holding cells without anyone escaping, and one ingenious guy figured out how to get out of there -- and pointed out a flaw in the system,” he said.

“If my life depended on it, I couldn’t have gotten through that hole. The metal mesh was bent all kinds of different ways, I thought he would rip himself apart trying to get through.”

Puemas was brought into the holding cell about 2 a.m. Thursday, Murphy said. About 20 minutes later an officer checked on him and didn’t notice anything wrong. About 2:52 a.m., the arresting officer noticed that Puemas was gone, and that there was a hole in the wall.

“People escaped from Alcatraz,” he said. “This guy was the first one here out of thousands.”

Times staff writer Steve Hymon contributed to this report.