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| Human Errors to Blame in Two Jail Escapes |
| By Dallas Morning News |
| Published: 08/06/2003 |
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The Dallas County Sheriff's Department will conduct internal affairs investigations of two jail escapes last month after reports released Tuesday indicated that human errors were to blame. In a memo to Chief Deputy Lana Porter, jail commanders said staffing shortages played a major role in one escape. A prisoner being moved on July 29 from the Irving jail took off his handcuffs and ran out of the basement door at Lew Sterrett Justice Center. 'We have brought the operations of this agency down to the bare bones,' Capt. James Ledford said in a memo about the jail's release division. 'When we did that, we knew that we were stretching the rubber band farther than it was designed to go. Now that it has snapped, we should not be that surprised, only grateful that no one was hurt at this time.' A memo from watch commander Lt. Thomas Henry said the July 29 escape of Thomas Wright was 'totally preventable.' Mr. Wright, 30, was not properly leg ironed, according to the department, and one deputy was transferring a dozen prisoners. Jail procedures call for two deputies to transfer prisoners, but Lt. Henry said illnesses and other assignments led to the staffing shortage. Mr. Wright was found about an hour later, less than a mile from the jail. The review of a July 26 escape found that a series of incidents led to the mistaken release of Ricky Dean Douglas, 37. He was wearing an identification band from another inmate, who already had been released. As inmates are released from the jail, their fingerprints are supposed to be matched to prints filed when they were booked. Detention officers could not find the fingerprint card that matched the inmate's ID band, so a duplicate was made. That forced a fingerprint technician to compare Mr. Douglas' prints with those on a computer screen. The review said the technician incorrectly matched Mr. Douglas' fingerprints to those of the other inmate. She later checked the fingerprints again and found the error. Mr. Douglas was recaptured Thursday morning in West Dallas. The two escapes happened within a week of each other, department spokesman Sgt. Don Peritz said. |
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