De La Rocha recognized for deterring jailbreak

“Above and beyond” is how the county commission described the actions of a detention center officer during a jailbreak incident last month. At its June 6 meeting, commissioners presented a special commendation to Socorro County Detention Center officer Esaul De La Rocha for his quick response in preventing a detainee from getting away.

During his monthly report to the county commission, jail administrator Eddie Garcia detailed the incident that occurred on May 13 and involved an inmate who was a fugitive from Colorado.

“We received a detainee who was picked up by the Sheriff’s office in Veguita on an outstanding fugitive warrant out of Pueblo, Colorado,” Garcia said. “He had jumped probation from APPO up there and was brought in on May 11, a Thursday.”

Garcia said he was housed under standard procedures.

“The individual, Grant Stewart, was booked in, and protocol called for him to be kept in a dry cell for 24-48 hours,” he said. “This depends on, if they’re coming off drugs or whatever the case, just to make sure they’re in their right mind so we can move them back to the general population.”

A dry cell is one without a sink or toilet and no window. An officer will routinely escort the individual out of the cell for breaks.

“You know this is a new facility. It was built in 2016, so it’s very secure,” Garcia said.

Regardless, on Saturday, May 13, the detention center saw its first-ever jailbreak.

“You would never guess that he did what he did,” he said.

Stewart’s escape was first noticed by the sound of a side door alarm at 2:30 p.m., as well as being observed standing outside the building by a security camera.

“My officer scanning the cameras in Master Control saw him outside the door. He appeared to be scanning the area to get a visual of where to go,” he said. “He wasn’t from Socorro, so he doesn’t know the area.”

Garcia said the officer immediately radioed the supervisor on scene, Esaul De La Rocha, who at the moment was working with a detainee on their out-of-cell time.

“They locked down the facility and started doing an emergency count,” he said. “The master control officer said he looked like the guy booked into the dry cell.”

However, the dry cell door was still shut and locked but was seen to be empty.

Garcia said they immediately tried to get on the phone, “but unfortunately, that was the day there was no phone service in Socorro.”

De La Rocha then went out the front door and noticed tracks on the sheetrock.

“Esaul automatically took the initiative and thought, ‘You know what, man, this guy was a sex offender, and I’m not going to have him just take off and not do anything about it,’” Garcia said.

“He jumped in a vehicle and spotted the guy behind Solaro and started going after him.”

The unarmed De La Rocha caught up to him, and “after the guy didn’t comply to stop, a foot chase ensued.”

Garcia said De La Rocha kept the subject, who had removed his uniform and was essentially naked, in sight at all times.

“At one point, he sprayed him with chemicals, and it apparently hurt him, messed him up, but he kept running, and Esaul kept up with him,” he said. “He just wouldn’t let him get out of sight.”

Garcia said the foot chase continued past Fresenius Dialysis Clinic and ended up in an area behind the Presbyterian Medical Services building.

“The subject saw a water faucet, so he started to decontaminate as much as he could,” he said.

“So, as he’s decontaminating, Esaul hit him again with more spray.”

In the meantime, city police and the sheriff’s office had been contacted by radio.

“The SO was the first on the scene, and after the deputies came up, he started to run across the street to the rodeo complex,” he said. “And again, he’s not wearing his uniform. He’s naked except for a trash bag covering his privates and backside.”

Garcia said deputies “took him down,” and he was transported to the hospital for clearance to return to detention.

“His bare feet were pretty beat up,” he said.

Stewart was charged with three Class 4 felonies; Escape or Attempting to Escape from Jail, Non-residential Burglary, and Theft of a Credit Card.

Stewart made his first appearance on May 18 in Magistrate Court. He will be brought back to the county on June 21 for his preliminary hearing before Judge Felix Saavedra.

Garcia commended De La Rocha for his dedication and perseverance.

“I told Esaul, ‘Hey, you didn’t know if he was going to pick up a bottle or if there was a knife out there or come across something he could’ve attacked you with,’” he said. “But he stayed maybe 10 steps away from him the whole time.”

The escape, Garcia said, was made through the ventilation shaft 14 feet above the floor.

“I guess he started somehow working on some security screws that were up there. He told us he worked on them six to seven hours,” he said. “He had been watching our staff to see when they were doing their rounds. He said they knew when they were checking on him, but he would play the part and jump back down and pretend he was sleeping, and when they’d leave, he’d jump back up and start working on them.

“So, we were dealing with somebody who’d been incarcerated before and somebody who knew how to do time,” Garcia said. “Then, on Saturday, we all had that power outage where nobody had cell phones. He managed to get into that tight crawl space by standing on the sink and crawling into that narrow shaft. He made it as far as my administration office.”

He then fell through the ceiling.

“When he fell down, he started going through my office, looking for clothing, some shoes, something to get rid of the uniform he had on,” Garica said. “I don’t keep anything like that inside my office. He took some fuel cards that were on my desk. He didn’t know they were expired.”

From there, he made his way to an outside door, which set off the alarm in master control.

“It’s just that Esaul was grabbing the horns and taking the initiative. I mean, he was never trained for that,” Garcia said. “To run and chase somebody, he should be commended for his bravery. We run a detention center, and the main thing is keeping everybody safe. To keep the staff safe, the inmates safe, and also the community.”

The day following the incident, Garcia and De La Rocha took stock of the area in question.

“I looked at cameras. I looked at the cell it occurred in,” Garica said. “We called in a welder, and they welded all those areas throughout the whole booking area.”

Garcia has worked for the county since 2017 and became the Detention Center administrator in 2018.

“Part of our SOP (standard operating procedure) is we do three shakedowns a day,” he said. “In my time here, we never had a major incident. This is our first.”