SEQUIM — A Clallam County jail inmate who allegedly walked away from the Olympic Medical Center emergency room to freedom in April was arrested Thursday in Lynnwood.
Also, on Wednesday, a 33-year-old man named by Sequim police as the department’s “most wanted” fugitive was arrested for six outstanding warrants and charged in connection with a stolen, antique pistol.
“You can run, but eventually we’ll track you down,” Sequim Police Chief Robert Spinks said in a statement.
Peter Norman Childs, 37, of Sequim was being held in the Clallam County jail on $25,000 bail after being charged March 27 with possession of cocaine with intent to deliver.
Sequim officers arrested Childs during a March raid on a residence suspected of being a retail outlet for cocaine and methamphetamine.
On April 7, Clallam County Superior Court Judge Ken Williams signed an order allowing Childs to leave the jail and go to Olympic Medical Center for surgery.
He was supposed to return to the jail April 9 or April 10, but instead walked out of the hospital and disappeared.
Sheriff Joe Martin said the hospital should have alerted the jail before releasing Childs, but a hospital spokeswoman said that unless inmates are accompanied by an officer, they are treated like any other patient.
On June 1, Sequim police received a tip from a resident of Lynwood, 17 miles north of Seattle, that Childs would be at a medical clinic there June 8.
Lynnwood police were notified, and members of the department’s Special Operations Unit — a group of plain clothed officers — took Childs into custody without incident at the clinic.
Childs was arrested for outstanding warrants, but also for driving with a suspended license and possession of drug paraphernalia, a statement from Sequim police says.
“He picked up some misdemeanors along the way,” said Lynnwood police spokeswoman Shannon Sessions, who said that Childs lived in Lynnwood before Sequim.
He is incarcerated in the Lynnwood city jail awaiting transport to the Clallam County jail, Sessions said Friday.
The day before Childs was nabbed, Shawn Thomas Mackey, 33, listed in court documents as homeless, was arrested in Port Angeles.
He was charged June 7 with second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm and possessing a stolen firearm.
Mackey will be arraigned on those charges June 16.
