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OCCC jail
break foiled

Prisoners attack and lock up
a guard, but escape is foiled

The three inmates involved last night
were moved to another lockup as an
internal investigation begins

---

By Leila Fujimori
Star-Bulletin

An internal investigation is under way at the Oahu Community Correctional Center after three inmates attacked a guard and attempted to escape last night.

It's the second escape attempt this year.

Police say the incident began at about 10:40 p.m. when inmate Gabriel S. K. Apilando asked a guard to pick up a pen outside his cell.

Inmates Logan Hose, 40, and Jay Jesus Pineda Gapusan, 23, rushed out from their cell and attacked a 39-year-old correctional officer and locked him inside the cell. Police said the inmates were armed with a metal pipe and a homemade plastic knife.

Apilando was indicted in the Christmas Eve robbery and shooting death of Song Chol Marshall, a Kaneohe liquor store owner.

By Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin
Three inmates tried to escape from one of the modules at
Oahu Community Correctional Center in Kalihi
last night. They were caught.

Warden Clayton Frank said the prison is investigating how Hose and Gapusan got their cell door open. They were able to grab the guard's keys, which Hose used to escape from the housing unit. Gapusan went into the control room and opened some of the doors of the module which houses 47 inmates, police said.

About 10 inmates were freed, Frank said.

But Frank said those inmates did not attempt to leave the module. The housing unit, he said, was still secure, because Hose had left with the keys.

The guard locked in the cell lit a fire, sounding a fire alarm. One inmate opened the cell to let the guard out and the guard ordered all the inmates back into their cells, Frank said.

Back-up units were immediately sent to the housing module, Frank said. Police were called and the prison towers were alerted about a potential escape.

"I thought that was pretty smart thinking," Frank said of the guard who started the fire. "He didn't have his radio with him and he needed to alert others."

"Preventing escapes takes a series of security measures," said Ted Sakai, Director of Public Safety.

"Inmates are constantly looking for ways to defeat this, so we'll stay on our toes."

Police say Hose was snagged on the razor wire topping the chain-link fence. After failing to escape, he used the stolen keys to return to his cell, Frank said.

Hose received numerous cuts from the razor wire, police said.

Hose would have had to scale two or three more fences to reach the prison's perimeter fence, Frank said. "The security features did what they should have done."

After the unit was secured and locked down, the three inmates were arrested at 2:50 a.m. and taken to the cellblock at the main police station. A shakedown, or search, was conducted in the module this morning and nothing was found, prison officials said.

On Jan. 17, inmate Kerbert Silva escaped by climbing over a razor wire fence.

Since then, the top and middle portions of that fence have been reinforced with additional razor and concertina wire.

"We're looking at putting it on the whole fence," Frank said.