By Christine Olley
The Philadelphia Daily News
PHILADELPHIA — Police asked for the public’s help yesterday in locating a teen prisoner who fled from a Northeast Philadelphia radiologist’s office.
Maurice Wheeler, 18, had been taken from the Youth Study Center, on Henry Avenue in East Falls, to Bustleton Radiology, on Bustleton Avenue near Murray Street, by Faithful Resources, a private company contracted by the center for prisoner transport, cops said.
Police are still trying to determine how Wheeler, charged with weapons violations, escaped.
“He was cuffed when he was taken to the facility, and at some point he was uncuffed so that he could have an X-ray done,” said Alicia Taylor, a spokeswoman for the Department of Human Services, which runs the Youth Study Center.
Wheeler, of Elston Street near Cheltenham Avenue, in Olney, was last seen wearing a dark blue T-shirt and khaki pants over a pair of blue and white striped pajama-type pants and white socks.
Taylor said DHS was investigating how Wheeler escaped and assisting police in finding him.
Anyone with information on Wheeler’s whereabouts is asked to call police at 215-686-3153 or 3154.
This isn’t the first escape the Youth Study Center has been forced to deal with:
* In March 2008, a 17-year-old Youth Study Center inmate, Anthony Horton, escaped from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was having an operation stemming from being shot.
* In October 2008, two teens escaped from the Youth Study Center after they broke a third-floor window and lowered themselves to the ground, using sheets they had tied to bedposts. A third teen was caught trying to escape after he fell and injured his back when the sheets ripped.
* Last month, a counselor at the Youth Study Center was attacked by three 17-year-olds trying to escape. The counselor was treated for facial injuries. Two other supervisors subdued the teens.
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