NASHVILLE, Tenn. — There is no doubt, on June 17, 2017, at 7:04 p.m., employees of a Nashville juvenile detention center, Youth Opportunity Investments, knew they had a real problem on their hands.
Surveillance video and an interval incident report obtained by NBC affiliate, WSMV News4 Investigates, shows staff astonished to learn that a juvenile offender had slipped into the ceiling from a bathroom.
Video captures staff in an administrative area holding their fingers to their lips and motioning for others to enter, as they listen for the juvenile moving through the ceiling.
The incident report shows at 6:45 p.m., a youth was allowed to use the bathroom in the intake area of the detention center.
A nurse allowed him to use the bathroom and then took another youth back to the main recreation area.
According to the incident report, two staff members were supervising him. It reads that when the nurse returned to the bathroom, she knocked on the door and he did not respond.
The narrative reads that the juvenile “utilized the toilet paper roll to unscrew the maintenance access hatch" and climb through the ceiling.
He could be heard in the ceiling in the administrative area 25 minutes later, the report said.
The video shows employees trying to find him and are stunned when he partially falls through the ceiling, his leg sticking out.
One employee can be seen trying to grab him, while it appears another begins to knock down ceiling tiles to try and grab him.
The boy falls through the ceiling and then appears to take a swing at a staff member, and is finally apprehended and taken away.
The incident report, though, described a different recollection.
While the video shows the staffer knocking down the ceiling, a staffer describes that the boy was “guided down by staff members.”
While it’s clear the boy falls and lands on the floor, another staffer describes that the boy was caught by staff.
The incident report states the boy only received minor scrapes.
News4 Investigates wanted to ask Youth Opportunities about the differences between what is shown in the video and what’s in the reports and asked for an interview Thursday following a meeting between the company and administration at the detention center.
While we waited for the meeting to begin, we were alerted that Youth Opportunity had cancelled the meeting.
No one from the company replied to a request for an interview.
Just last weekend, four teens escaped the same detention center. Two of the four teens are now back in custody while the search continues for the remaining two, police said.
Decorrius Wright, 16, and Calvin Howse, 15, were apprehended by the Juvenile Crime Task Force in Madison, Tennessee.
Wright and Morris Marsh, 17, were accused of murder. Marsh is still on the run along with Brandon Caruthers, 17. Caruthers and Howse both have armed robbery and gun possession charges in their arrest histories.
Police said the four escaped the Juvenile Detention Center downtown at approximately 9:44 p.m. Saturday.
The remaining two suspects should be considered dangerous, according to police. They were last seen running on South 2nd Street toward Jefferson Street.
Wright is accused in the Feb. 7 murder of Kyle Yorlets, 24, on Torbett Street. Marsh is accused in the April 8th murder of Charles Easley, 19, on Lemont Drive. Caruthers has been transferred to adult court on an August 2018 armed robbery case from Apache Trail in South Nashville. Howse was last arrested November 21st on Dickerson Pike on charges of auto theft and gun possession.
Anyone who sees the escaped teens is asked to immediately contact the Emergency Communications Center at 615-862-8600.