Security smash
Courtesy photo Rathdrum’s Jeffrey Hines allegedly drove this truck through a security gate and into this warehouse door at the Ada County Sheriff’s Office in Boise early Wednesday.
Hines
Jeffrey Dale Hines, 55, Rathdrum, allegedly drove his pickup truck through this security gate at the Ada County Sheriff's Office in Boise and into a warehouse next to the jail early Wednesday morning. (Courtesy photo)
By BRIAN WALKER
Staff Writer
If you want to capture law enforcement's attention, drive through the security gate of a sheriff's office.
Jeffrey Dale Hines, 55, of Rathdrum, is accused of driving his pickup truck through a gate at the Ada County Sheriff's Office in Boise and into a warehouse next to the jail early Wednesday morning.
Hines, who did not appear to be injured, was arrested and booked into that jail on felony counts of injuring jails and malicious injury to property.
"No one was hit or hurt by Hines when he drove through our parking lot and then hit the side of the jail," said Patrick Orr, Ada County Sheriff’s Office spokesman.
Orr said deputies are trying to figure out why Hines suddenly diverted into the sheriff's office property just after 5 a.m. He said a witness saw Hines make an abrupt U-turn on Cole Road near the Barrister Drive intersection, drive across the lawn next to the sheriff's office before smashing his truck through the gate into the back parking lot and warehouse.
The jail was put into lockdown mode as a precaution after the incident.
A Boise Police K9 bomb-detection unit also arrived to check out the truck and surrounding area while deputies searched both the front and back parking lots. Those crews didn't find anything related to the crash.
The truck destroyed the bottom of the warehouse door, but did not enter all the way inside the building, Orr said. Hines then walked into the warehouse, where he was arrested moments later.
Orr said deputies interviewed Hines, but it remained unclear later Wednesday why he would drive through the gate and into the side of the warehouse.
There does not appear to be any connection between Hines and any current inmates in the jail, Orr said.
Some equipment inside the warehouse was also damaged.
Hines will make his first appearance in court this afternoon. Both charges he faces have a penalty of a maximum of five years in prison.
The ACSO declined to comment further on the case on Wednesday.
Responding to additional questions from The Press, Orr said, "We will not be releasing any other information about this case as it is all still under active investigation."
Hines' criminal history includes DUI, drugs and malicious injury to property.