By Mark Fischenich
ST. PAUL — Calling it “astounding” that court-committed sexual psychopaths at the Minnesota State Security Hospital in St. Peter could undertake the methodical task — undetected by guards — of sawing through a hardened steel bar and then escaping through a window, lawmakers grilled state officials Wednesday about their oversight of the facility.
“If somebody was cutting a window apart ... It’s hard to believe that you would not be able to tell that was taking place,” said Sen. Linda Berglin, chairwoman of the Senate Health and Human Services Budget Committee that held the special hearing Wednesday.
“Madame chair, I understand why you would come to that conclusion,” said Wes Kooistra, assistant commissioner of the state Department of Human Services.
Kooistra admitted failures at the St. Peter facility, which has suffered two escapes involving six patients considered too dangerous to be released into society when their prison sentences expired. But he also detailed numerous changes being implemented at the Security Hospital and said the department and Gov. Tim Pawlenty are now looking to double the amount of money being requested this session for security improvements.
Committee members, members of the Senate Crime Prevention Committee and St. Peter Sen. John Hottinger, who worked with Berglin to get the special hearing scheduled, asked repeated questions about what occurred — and what security procedures failed to occur — leading up to the most recent escape on April 15. In that incident, four men convicted as sexually dangerous or psychopathic personalities escaped, and one — convicted rapist Michael Dale Benson — has yet to be captured.
Kooistra’s answers were often hampered by the fact that the investigation of the escape is incomplete, and Berglin promised to hold another hearing when the preliminary investigative report is finished — possibly next week. Nevertheless, senators pushed for initial answers and opinions from Kooistra and Michael Tessneer, the chief executive of state operated services.
In two instances, Kooistra and Tessneer suggested that security procedures that probably would have foiled the escape apparently weren’t followed by Security Hospital staff. For instance, windows in patient bedrooms are supposed to be checked during each shift by the guards at the facility, known as security counselors.
Kooistra said those checks should have involved pulling on each bar on the window of each room. Senators tried to pin down how many shifts must have failed to do that during the presumably slow process of cutting through a steel bar with a hacksaw blade.
He said over a 48-hour period, four to five security counselors would have failed to follow the procedure of manually checking the bars.
“If the windows were checked as they were supposed to be checked, this wouldn’t have happened,” Kooistra said.
Tessneer had similar comments about the alleged smuggling of hacksaw blades into the facility by Benson’s father, who has been charged with aiding and abetting the escape by concealing the blades in the heal of work boots he gave his son.
“All packages that come in are opened. There is a metal detector waved over them,” Tessneer said. “... If those protocols were followed, it’s hard to believe you could get metal saw blades in.”
Kooistra conceded that the staff at the facility doesn’t have as much experience as he would prefer and that 40 percent have one year of experience or less. That’s due in part to the rapid growth in the number of court-committed offenders being sent to the facility.
After the hearing, Hottinger said the department is making a good-faith effort to address problems. But he said the failure of an inexperienced staff to consistently follow security procedures can’t be blamed solely on the workers because it also reflects on who is in charge of ensuring that training and supervision of staff is adequate.
“That’s an administrative problem, a management problem,” Hottinger said. “That’s not a staff problem. ... Somewhere up the line, it’s not getting done right.”
Rep. Ruth Johnson, DFL-St. Peter, said St. Peter residents deserve better. The community has always accepted the presence of the security hospital, but always with confidence that the state was doing everything necessary to keep the city safe.
“As the numbers and the level of risk have increased so much in recent years, it appears that the security has not increased sufficiently to guarantee public safety,” Johnson said.
