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| Escapee enters window to face owner with gun |
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| Inmates caught Monday following Sunday breakout from NICI |
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By David Rauzi
COTTONWOOD -- "They pulled up and they saw there were bikes and kids' toys in the driveway, and they came in anyway," said Cassi Lockett. "Obviously they didn't care. They had no cares at all."
The Cottonwood mother and her three children -- ages 6, 5 and 2 -- had a frightful encounter with two escaped North Idaho Correctional Institution (NICI) inmates Monday morning that ended quickly with a pointed gun from inside the home and the timely arrival of a county deputy at the driveway's end.
"It wasn't right. When they go to court for it I want them to get the worst punishment," she said.
Richard Daniel Nieves and Ben Westley Perez, both 20, were arraigned Tuesday, June 30, in magistrate court on felony escape charges stemming from their NICI breakout Sunday evening. Additional charges related to the escape, including grand theft, are pending review by the Idaho County Prosecutor's Office. The pair is currently incarcerated at Idaho Correctional Institution - Orofino (ICI).
According to information from ICSO and the Idaho Department of Correction, at 6:05 p.m. on Sunday, June 28, Nieves and Perez climbed over a security fence and ran from the institution. Personnel from ICSO, NICI, Cottonwood City Police, Idaho State Police and the Lewis County Sheriff's Office responded to the area to conduct search operations.
On leaving NICI, according to ICSO Deputy Mike Brewster, the pair first headed south, doubled back and went north, and at one point encountered an unoccupied ranch house owned by Tim Seubert. Here they are alleged to have broken into a camp trailer and the house where they stole beer and tequila, medical supplies to treat injuries suffered going over NICI fence concertina wire, and two four-wheelers. The pair then headed south.
At her residence above Cottonwood Butte Ski Course, less than two miles from NICI, Lockett was talking on the phone with a friend, who she learned about the escape from the evening prior, and was looking out the window when two men came up her drive on four-wheelers.
"They were playing around like kids; racing, spinning in the dirt," she said. "I had no clue who they were."
Lockett is still shaken by the incident and doesn't remember when she called 911 -- dispatch reported it at 10:04 a.m. -- but it was some point during the inmates observation of the house; one came up her drive and even petted her dog. When they pulled around to the back door one of them had wrapped a shirt around his face and pulled his hat down so only his eyes were showing.
"They knew I was there. Obviously they had a plan," Lockett said, "otherwise why would he cover his face?"
She said she was then screaming to ICSO dispatch for assistance, during which she put her two kids behind the couch and got her weapon: a .22 Ruger pistol. The pair banged on the back door, and then one of them, Perez, started coming through the window. With his head and shoulder through the frame he looked directly at Lockett who was pointing the gun at him and yelling for him to leave.
"He was shocked," she said. "I think he was expecting some weak girl hiding in the closet and instead he had a gun pointed at him."
Perez quickly withdrew and the pair left on the four-wheelers. Deputy Brewster arrived on-scene with the dust of the fleeing ATVs still in the air, and came up on them when Perez -- going too fast -- rolled his four-wheeler. Brewster held Nieves at gunpoint for arrest and then examined Perez before calling for an ambulance. The NICI CERT team arrived shortly afterwards.
"They were very intoxicated," he said, but neither offered resistance to arrest. "When you're looking down the barrel of a gun, people tend to be compliant."
Nieves and Perez were transported to St. Mary's Hospital in Cottonwood for treatment and subsequently moved to ICI-Orofino for incarceration.
At the time of their escape, both men were being held under NICI's retained jurisdiction program and were eligible to be considered for release in October.
Nieves was serving a four-to-seven year term for injury to a child in Blaine County. Perez was serving a three-to-10 year term for criminal possession of a financial transaction card and forgery devices, and burglary in Minidoka County.
Lockett's husband, Stan, was not at home at the time of the incident. The couple has lived here for five years, she said, and has not had problems with prior escapes. Though she is upset she didn't receive the NICI escape notification call on this incident. Brewster said NICI logs show a call was made but was somehow missed.
Just following the incident, Brewster noted Lockett was still scared and "shaking like a leaf." Lockett said her son, Justin, thought he would have nightmares following this, and that night the kids slept in the living room near her bedroom. On Tuesday she was still shaken, going out to feed the dogs, "I was having a panic attack the whole time," she said.
But she said the pair were "obviously not from around here" and underestimated prairie girls who know what to do and know how to shoot guns.
"I would have shot him," she said. "I wouldn't have let anyone in here."
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