Prisoner escapes en route to jail

A Bremerton police warrant officer was transporting six prisoners to the Kitsap County jail in Port Orchard Wednesday when he lost one along the way.

Terrance Anthony Puglisi, 35, was able to slip out of his handcuffs and through the emergency window of a large transport van just a mile away from the jail Wednesday afternoon.

“He is still on the lamb, so to speak,” Bremerton police chief Rob Forbes at press time Thursday night.

Puglisi was being transported from a Pierce County jail where he had been held on a warrant for possession of stolen property in the second degree from Kitsap County, as well as a warrant for unlawful possession of drugs with intent to deliver from Vancouver, Wash.

The van was stopped at a traffic light at 12:55 p.m. at the Tremont Street and Sidney Avenue intersection in Port Orchard when he escaped.

“The gentleman that he was cuffed to didn’t say anything,” Forbes said.

The warrant officer driving the van wasn’t aware Puglisi had escaped until another prisoner alerted him sometime before they reached the jail.

The officer notified other officers and called 911 from the jail. Port Orchard police searched for Puglisi, but were hampered by strong winds and heavy rains.

Puglisi has a lengthy criminal history of both property and drug crimes. His last Kitsap County address was in Port Orchard, though that was more than a year and a half ago.

Puglisi is described as very thin, at about 150 pounds and 5 foot 11 inches tall. He is a white male with blue eyes and long brown hair that goes down his back. He has gone by aliases Gino Anthony Puglisi and Michael Albert Shelton.

Puglisi was wearing regular street clothes at the time of his escape — a dark zippered sweatshirt, T-shirt and jeans. It’s fairly common for the prisoners on these “chain transports” from one jail to another to be dressed in the clothes they were wearing when arrested, Forbes said.

Anyone with information about Puglisi or his whereabouts is asked to call 911.

Bremerton police are currently trying to contact persons who might be familiar with Puglisi’s whereabouts and associates.

“Hopefully that will pan out,” Forbes said.

Prisoner escapes have happened before in Kitsap County. In 1999, a work release inmate escaped from a corrections officer at Kitsap County jail and drove off in a car parked nearby, but was arrested the next day in Belfair. In 1997, four prisoners — including a violent sex offender — escaped. The same year another prisoner was released to a sponsor in order to be taken to a dentist appointment and he never showed up. Two juveniles also escaped from the Forest Ridge Juvenile Facility in 1997.

“It’s very unusual for this sort of thing,” Forbes said.

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