Three Green Hill School inmates are facing charges in Lewis County Superior Court after staff at the juvenile detention facility conducted three separate room searches in September and October and found contraband vape pens and a cellphone in the inmates’ rooms.
A detective with the Joint Narcotics Task Force (JNET) reported receiving separate reports from Green Hill School, a juvenile detention facility in Chehalis, about the vape pens found in inmates’ rooms on Sept. 7, according to court documents.
Green Hill staff reportedly found the first vape pen in a room occupied by Myshaun Coleman, 18, on Sept. 4 after one staff member “noticed a skunky odor inside Myshaun Coleman’s room,” according to court documents.
Staff reportedly found the second vape pen during a “random room search” of a room occupied by Jonell Maurice Irvin Swan, 19, on Sept. 5, according to court documents.
Both vape pens were found on the inmates’ beds.
About a month later, on Oct. 6, Green Hill staff reportedly conducted a search on multiple inmate rooms “due to a report a package had been thrown over the wall,” according to court documents.
Inside a room occupied by Anthony Javell Smith, 24, Green Hill staff reportedly found a broken DVD player with a “specific wrench” inside that fit screws to an intercom speaker within the room. Inside the speaker, staff found “(a) cellphone, charger and teabag,” according to court documents.
Smith, Swan and Coleman were each charged Oct. 30 with one count of possession of a controlled substance while in a county or local correctional facility, which is a class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
The three defendants had preliminary hearings in Lewis County Superior Court on Nov. 14. Arraignment hearings are scheduled for Nov. 22.
The room searches and subsequent charging come after JNET served a warrant at Green Hill School on Aug. 31 and seized evidence related to the possession and distribution of illegal controlled substances at Green Hill.
During the execution of the search warrant, JNET detectives reportedly located lockers where Green Hill staff stored contraband found within their facility dating back to 2017, including illegal controlled substances, cellphones, vape pens, improvised knives, handwritten documents arranging illegal drug transactions, and hand tools, according to previous Chronicle reporting.
The search came after a May 30 letter to the governor’s office signed by the Centralia and Chehalis city mayors and chiefs of police, which asked the governor to refer the case to the Washington State Attorney General’s Office to investigate Green Hill School “for their ongoing practices and procedures.”
In response, Taylor K. Wonhoff, deputy general counsel from the governor’s office, wrote on Aug. 3 that the 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,” according to previous Chronicle reporting.
Washington state Senate Minority Leader John Braun, R-Centralia, has since renewed the call for a state investigation into Green Hill School.
