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The Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team (JNET) on Thursday announced an ongoing investigation at Green Hill School in Chehalis after receiving tips alleging a staff member was providing narcotics to a student inmate and that overdoses were being handled internally rather than being reported to law enforcement.
On Thursday, Aug. 31, JNET served a warrant at the Chehalis juvenile detention facility. JNET detectives, joined by Centralia police Chief Stacy Denham and Deputy Chief Matt McKnight of the Chehalis Police Department, seized evidence related to possession and distribution of illegal controlled substances at Green Hill.
“JNET detectives located lockers where Green Hill staff was storing contraband found within their facility dating back to 2017,” the release stated. “In these lockers, JNET detectives found illegal controlled substances, cellphones, vape pens, improvised knives (shanks), hand written documents arranging illegal drug transactions, and hand tools. The illegal controlled substances include green leafy substance believed to be marijuana, crystal substances believed to be methamphetamine, powder substances believed to be fentanyl, and pills believed to be fentanyl. These substances will be sent to a lab for testing as needed as part of this ongoing investigation.”
The investigation comes after four arrests and the interception of over 1,000 suspected fentanyl pills following the overdose of an inmate who was found unconscious in his cell in November 2022. That inmate was transported to a hospital and received lifesaving care. He was ultimately sent home to continue his recovery, according to the Centralia Police Department.
In a letter dated May 30, 2023, and signed by the Centralia and Chehalis city mayors and chiefs of police, local officials asked the Washington state Attorney General’s Office to conduct an investigation into Green Hill School “for their ongoing practices and procedures.”
The letter cited three 2022 incidents that occurred at Green Hill School, including the November overdose incident, that “have had negative impacts on communities in Washington.”
The first of the other two incidents cited in the letter occurred June 8, 2022, when a recently-released Green Hill inmate allegedly stole a vehicle from a Green Hill employee in Seattle, drove it to Centralia and shot at a house. Investigators later learned the employee had a previous first-degree robbery conviction and uncovered a suspected “intimate relationship” between the employee and the former inmate, “which led to them being together on the day of the drive-by shooting.”
The last incident, which investigators discovered while investigating the November 2022 overdose, occurred on Jan. 16, 2022, when four subjects were arrested for their alleged involvement in three drive-by shootings in Cowlitz County. Two of those subjects were former Green Hill inmates while the other was a Green Hill security officer who worked in the same housing unit as the two inmates. The officer had a history of text conversations with one of the inmates regarding the purchase of ecstasy and transfer of a firearm from the officer to the inmate. The officer only separated employment from Green Hill School after he stopped showing up for work in February 2022, according to the letter.
“Even though we only cite three incidents, we believe many other failures are regularly occurring in this and other juvenile justice facilities,” the letter states. “These failures are hurting and inhibiting the positive progress of the student inmates within the facility and corrupting the integrity of the juvenile justice system in the Green Hill School and throughout Washington state.”
In a response letter dated Aug. 3, Taylor K. Wonhoff, deputy general counsel from the Washington state Attorney General’s Office, “respectfully declined further investigation,” noting the state had “implemented changes to its security practices including the use of full body scanners and bag scanners.”
The response further stated they had launched new employee training and enhanced an existing supervisor academy with a focus on counseling and coaching skills.
“Accordingly, the governor’s office is declining to refer this matter to the attorney general’s office for further investigation,” the letter states. “The Governor’s Office appreciates your concerns for the wellbeing of young people served at Green Hill school, and we encourage you to connect with DCYF to discuss any remaining concerns, explore potential partnership opportunities, and learn more about how the agency is transforming its service delivery in response to an older population.”
A few weeks later, on Aug. 17, a JNET detective accompanied a Child Protective Services (CPS) investigator to the Green Hill Juvenile Rehabilitation and Detention Facility to follow up on the CPS complaint regarding a Green Hill staff member providing a student inmate with illegal controlled substances, according to the news release.
After contacting witnesses there, the JNET detective learned staff members had taken suspected fentanyl from multiple student inmates connected to the CPS complaint. The JNET detective contacted an administrator at the Green Hill facility and asked for the fentanyl pills that had been seized. The administrator stated he would coordinate with the detective to get the illicit controlled substances to law enforcement.
JNET detectives did not hear back from Green Hill regarding their efforts to recover the suspected fentanyl connected to the CPS complaints by Wednesday, Aug. 30, leading JNET to secure the search warrant that was executed Thursday, Aug. 31.
“This is an ongoing investigation and no further information is being released at this time,” JNET stated in the news release.
JNET encourages anyone with information related to illegal controlled substances being introduced or distributed to student inmates in the Green Hill Juvenile Rehabilitation and Detention Facility to contact JNET Detective Sergeant Tracy Murphy at 360-330-7614.
