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Six juveniles briefly escaped from Washington, D.C.'s $46 million youth detention center in Laurel on Sunday, marking the second escape since the center opened in May.
Reggie Sanders, a spokesman for the District's Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, said six youths escaped from the New Beginnings Youth Development Center at approximately 2 p.m.
All six boys were apprehended by various law enforcement agencies that afternoon.
"DYRS has initiated a full investigation into this matter and once complete, the agency will release the findings," Sanders said in a statement.
Sgt. David Schlosser, a U.S. Park Police spokesman, said an officer searching the area for the juveniles saw them and stopped to investigate near Route 198 and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, near the center.
Schlosser said the six juveniles attempted to flee on foot. One escapee struggled with the officer before crossing the roadway and joining three others hiding in a drainage pipe.
The four youths were apprehended with help from Maryland State Police, Anne Arundel County police and the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service.
Schlosser said Anne Arundel County police located and apprehended the other two juveniles in the nearby Russett Green neighborhood. Schlosser said none of the youths were armed.
Russett Community Association president Tim Reyburn wondered why there is no formal escape-notification system from New Beginnings.
"There are technologies in place that they can use to inform the citizens. If they're going to be there they need to start communicating for us," he said, pointing to how the nearby state-run female youth detention center Thomas J. S. Waxter Center in Laurel sends voice messages and e-mails informing residents about escapees.
"The fact that Waxter can do it and [New Beginnings] does not, it says a lot to me," he said.
The detention center is run by the DYRS and houses 60 juvenile offenders from the District between the ages of 14 and 21. It is located in Anne Arundel County on a 30-acre campus between Route 198 and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, just east of Russett.