Officials: Man who attempted escape was set to be freed

The incarcerated person who prompted a brief manhunt on Tuesday after allegedly slipping through his jail cell ceiling at San Francisco General Hospital would have been freed hours later had he not tried to escape, according to officials with the San Francisco Sheriff ’s Office.

Now, Corey Nelson, 21, faces a fresh felony charge and will remain in lockup at least until his next court hearing.

“It was definitely bad timing,” said San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto.

Nelson’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Semuteh Freeman,

said she was not at liberty to discuss the case but described the young man as someone with a large network of support from his family and community members.

“He is currently quite vulnerable as someone who is both hospitalized and system-involved,” Freeman said in a statement.

Nelson was initially booked into the hospital’s jail ward on April 18 on suspicion of multiple charges, including battery on an officer and resisting or obstructing a peace officer, according to jail records.

A judge later ordered him released on his own recognizance for those charges, but Nelson remained in custody because he was wanted for a separate, felony crime in Contra Costa County, Miyamoto said.

Nelson was set to be transferred to Contra Costa County until Tuesday morning, when officials there contacted the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office to say that Nelson’s charges in that county would be dropped.

“The inmate unfortunately was going to be released today,” Miyamoto said in a Tuesday interview. “And we just got the notification from the other county right about the time that the escape was occurring.”

Sheriff ’s officials on Tuesday said deputies realized that Nelson was not in his cell about 9:45 a.m.

“Based on the quick actions of the deputies assigned to this unit, they were able to thwart any possible escape by immediately locating the suspect within a secure area of the facility, where he eventually surrendered peacefully,” a sheriff’s spokesperson said.

Nelson was detained, unharmed, at 10:21. There were no injuries to staff, officials said.

Nelson now faces a felony charge of escape, according to jail records.

Miyamoto said Nelson was housed in a secure detention facility on the hospital’s seventh floor, and that there is no requirement that the people housed there be restrained in any way.

Nelson will likely remain in custody on the seventh floor of the hospital, but perhaps in a different cell.

People suspected of crimes who require medical attention are typically sent to San Francisco General for care before being sent to jail. Officials said they were unable to comment on the reason Nelson was hospitalized due to medical privacy laws.

“I’ll just say,” Miyamoto said, “that we’re not going to put him back where he escaped from.”