Fire set, teen escapes from Louisville-area juvenile detention center over weekend
One teen set fires in the Jefferson Regional Juvenile Detention Center and another then used it as his opportunity to escape, prompting a police response to the facility Saturday, state officials confirmed Monday.
It is the second time police have had to respond to state-run youth facilities in recent weeks. On Aug. 20, as many as 10 youths at the Warren Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Bowling Green caused “a significant amount of damage to the facility.”
A teen girl — who was already being held at the Louisville-area facility for an arson charge — was able to access a disposable lighter and set fires at “a couple of locations within the facility,” Lyndon Police Chief Grady Throneberry told The Herald-Leader on Monday.
According to the Department of Juvenile Justice, it was during the evacuation that one teen escaped. Throneberry said the boy was quickly recaptured in an adjacent neighborhood less than a quarter-mile away.
The girl, 17, has been charged with an additional count of arson, Throneberry said, and the boy was charged with escape.
No one was injured during the incident, the state said.
The facility suffered some smoke damage and broken windows, Throneberry said.
“The internal investigations branch of the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet is opening an investigation and any needed corrective action or revised security features will be implemented,” Justice and Public Safety Cabinet spokesperson Morgan Hall said.
The state converted an existing DJJ facility — a day treatment center — into a small, residential facility after Louisville Metro Government closed it’s city-run Louisville Metro Youth Detention Center due to budget cuts at the end of 2019. The state-run facility in Lyndon, a suburban Louisville city, opened Jan. 1, 2020.
Throneberry said there have been some “disturbances” since the detention center opened, but they’ve all been “relatively minor.”
Throneberry said the state has told him there is a $3.5 million upgrade plan for the center, but the funding is not available yet.
The DJJ has struggled with a staffing shortage in recent years. In September, the Herald-Leader published a series of stories that disclosed serious incidents of physical abuse, inappropriate sexual contact and neglect inside these facilities.
