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A defiant youth overpowered two resident advisers to spark an hour-long incident at the Victor Cullen Center near Sabillasville Wednesday evening, according to Tammy Brown, spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services.

All of the 14 youths who participated in the chaos have been relocated to other detention centers throughout Maryland while charges against them are pending, Brown said Thursday.

There were minor injuries to staff, and one youth complaining about an injury was taken to the hospital. The youth was later found to be uninjured, Brown said.

"We're still doing a full investigation," she said, adding that state officials are interviewing the center's residents and staff and reviewing video surveillance.

The tools that four of the youths stole from a building supporting the center's pre-apprenticeship program and used to cut their way through the center's fence have been removed from the center. The fence has been repaired, and additional personnel are on the grounds, Brown said.

The state reopened the Victor Cullen Center as a secure treatment center for male juveniles in July 2007. It is located on a 500-acre campus near Sabillasville in northwestern Frederick County. After two boys, ages 14 and 16, escaped from the center in June 2008, the center began assigning two resident advisers to each of the four cottages instead of one.

Each cottage houses 12 youths. The youth from two of the cottages were involved in the Wednesday incident, according to Brown. The trouble started sometime around 7:15 p.m.

"One of the youths was being difficult and combative toward staff," Brown said. Two staff members tried to de-escalate the youth while other staffers came to the scene, but the youth overpowered the two resident advisers.

The youth was "definitely a strong kid," said Brown, who did not know the youth's age. "Kids started to act out as a result of that incident."

Fourteen of the center's committed residents fled their units. Officials quickly found 10 of them in a maintenance building on the center's grounds.

But four others broke into a building housing the tools for the center's pre-apprenticeship building, and headed for the 15-feet-tall, no-climb mesh fence.

"They were able to cut the fence using those tools," Brown said. Police apprehended all four boys without incident before 8:30 p.m. walking on railroad tracks close to the center.

One neighbor of the center heard the center's alarm siren go off three times.

David Dingle, a member of the Victor Cullen Center Community Advisory Board, said he received an automatic alert phone call about the breakout between 7:30 and 8 p.m. A second call informing residents that the escapees had been rounded up followed at about 10:30 p.m.

Dingle said he was satisfied with the alerts on Wednesday. He also said his visits to the advisory board meetings over the past year have shown him that the center has been functioning smoothly. "It seems like everything was OK for me," Dingle said.

E-mail Jeremy Hauck at jhauck@gazette.net.