A week ago, a prisoner escorted by two deputies at King County Jail facilities near Harborview escaped into thin air. The suspect — last seen heading toward the Yesler Terrace neighborhood — was still wearing handcuffs as he made his run for freedom while police units and King County’s Guardian One helicopter circled the area.

We haven’t seen another mention of the case by Seattle’s big media since last Monday even as the suspect remains at large.

Authorities are still searching for Alan Polevia. The 31-year-old is approximately 5’7″ and 160 pounds and was described as Samoan by police during Monday’s manhunt. We’ve asked King County Sheriff, the agency charged with rounding Polevia up, for a photograph but have not yet heard back.

Polevia was in custody for two theft warrants stemming from his December arrest for investigation of burglary. He also was convicted of third degree assault in 2006.

Everywhere you look, the looming sequestration is prompting gloom and doom. Universities are warning of layoffs. The Seattle School District says it will lose funds for poor kids and those with special needs. President Barack Obama tells us the automatic cuts will mean less first responders, jeopardizing our ability to recover from national disasters.
So you may be surprised to learn that sequestration has an upside.

The prospect of sequestration has prompted the feds to start saving money by releasing several hundred immigrants who have been held in detention facilities across the country. These immigrants are still in "removal proceedings," meaning they are at risk for deportation, according to Andrew Muňoz, spokesperson for the Seattle office of U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement. But he says they have been placed "on methods of supervision less costly than detention."

At the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Muňoz says, the feds pay roughly $100 per person a day for most detainees.

Muňoz won't say how many immigrants, if any, have been released from the Tacoma facility in particular. But Jorge Baron, executive director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, says he has heard rumors that 40 to 50 detainees have walked out the door.

"While this is of course a positive step for those families, it's still a relatively limited number compared to the overall capacity of the facility," Baron says.

As of yesterday morning, the Tacoma detention center held 1,295 detainees, according to Muňoz. That reflects a tremendous build-up over the past decade. In 2006, when we wrote a cover story on the facility, it held 525 immigrants, which even then constituted a dramatic expansion over previous years.

Still, conservation politicians are apoplectic over any releases, and take a cynical view.

"It's abhorrent that President Obama is releasing criminals into our communities to promote his political agenda on sequestration," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, according to the Associated Press. "By releasing criminal immigrants onto the streets, the Administration is needlessly endangering American lives.

What Goodlatte fails to recognize is that "illegal" immigrants are not criminals; immigration law is a civil not criminal matter. And obviously it's wildly hyperbolic to depict such immigrants as a threat to American lives.

In fact, as even some conservatives recognize these days, undocumented immigrants are deeply intertwined with Americans. Many are parents of citizens, meaning they're actually responsible for protecting, not harming, American lives. Some detainees could even be citizens themselves, as we showed in our 2006 story and again in 2008, the latter time reporting on an American veteran who was mistakenly held at the facility for seven months.

So as far as it affects detention centers, bring on the sequestration!

Two people were released Thursday after spending five months in custody - much of it in solitary confinement - for refusing to answer questions before a federal grand jury investigating last spring's May Day riot in Seattle.

Katherine Olejnik and Matthew Duran of Olympia were found in civil contempt of court last September for declining to say what they might know about a group of black-clad Northwest anarchists who smashed windows of cars and buildings after breaking away from a protest march.

U.S. District Judge Richard Jones ordered their release on Wednesday, saying it was clear further time at the Federal Detention Center in Seatac wasn't going to persuade them to talk. The judge said they should be freed by 4 p.m. Thursday, and they were released at 4 p.m. on the dot, met by close friends and family, said Olejnik's lawyer, Jenn Kaplan.

"We're thrilled," Kaplan said. "It's a vindication of what our clients have been saying from the outset: that they were never going to participate in this witch hunt."

Neither Olejnik nor Duran was suspected of involvement in the vandalism, but they were subpoenaed to testify as part of the grand jury investigation. Among the buildings damaged were Niketown, several bank offices and the building that houses the Seattle branch of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Seattle police arrested several suspects, at least three of whom were convicted, and federal agents sought to find the culprits who damaged the courthouse.

A federal search warrant affidavit filed in the case was mistakenly unsealed and obtained by The Seattle Times last October. It laid out a glimpse of the case, showing that state and federal agents were watching some members of the small group of Portland anarchists even before May Day. The affidavit said investigators were tracking members as early as April 9, when they and others were observed by FBI surveillance at a Portland event.

Agents later watched the anarchists as they traveled north for the May 1 protest.

Olejnik told the grand jury that she wasn't at the protest, that she didn't know who had gone to Seattle to take part, and that no one had told her what happened during it, Kaplan said. But once the prosecutor began asking about the political beliefs of others, she clammed up - and kept quiet, even after being offered immunity.

"It was something that was just undertaken to propagate fear within the community," Kaplan said. "The idea that your friends were going to be at risk of having to testify against you or going to jail - this could happen to anybody if they happen to know someone who's suspected of a crime."

The judge found Olejnik and Duran in civil contempt of court last September and ordered them jailed. The confinement could have lasted another 13 months, but the pair only appeared to be becoming more resolute, he wrote, and further confinement appeared pointless. They could face future prosecution for criminal contempt of court.

"Whatever the merits of their choices not to testify, their demeanor has never given the court reason to doubt their sincerity or the strength of their convictions," Jones wrote.

The U.S. attorney's office in Seattle declined to comment Thursday, but issued a statement last fall saying prosecutors do not "investigate or seek to silence lawful free speech, or dissent. We do, however, investigate and enforce the law where speech crosses the line and becomes threats or acts of violence."

"We are not free to disseminate our filings regarding a grand jury matter," spokeswoman Emily Langlie wrote in an email Thursday.

Duran served two weeks in solitary confinement at the start of his detention, returned in late December and has been there ever since, the judge wrote. Olejnik served her first six days in solitary, and was returned there from Dec. 27 until at least Feb. 12.

Their physical and mental health had deteriorated, the judge said.

Two Tacoma police officers suffered minor injuries when they crashed into a utility pole Wednesday night while responding to a call.

Police spokeswoman Loretta Cool told The News Tribune ( http://bit.ly/WndI1m) the police car swerved to avoid another car and sheared off the pole.