Three sheriff’s office employees suspended after inmate escape

LITTLE ROCK, AR – Three employees have been suspended without pay after an inmate was mistakenly released from the Pulaski County Jail in March.

According to the sheriff’s office, Sergeant Pamela Smith, Clerk Betty McCoy and Deputy Russell Barker were suspended without pay after their actions were found to contribute to the mistaken release of Dewayne Boykins in March 2012. Smith was suspended for five days while McCoy and Barker were suspended for 20.

Boykins, who also escaped from the Hot Spring County Jail in June 2011, was arrested and then mistakenly released from the Pulaski County Regional Detention Facility on March 17. He was quickly recaptured.

Lieutenant Carl Minden with the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department says his escape was simply human error.

"He's escaped from some other facilities, but we actually knew that information," Minden says.

According to the suspension letters, one of the deputies failed to secure Boykins and then failed to notify a supervisor when they suspected he switched clothes and still let him walk out.

The sheriff's department has made changes since this happened. Before when an inmate checked in they had to submit to a thumbprint but not when they left. Now the thumbprint is required on both ends.

"It gets extremely busy, extremely hectic,” Minden says. “There's times when you have 70 - 80 people getting booked in there. Not to make excuses it's just a busy environment."

But Minden says the technology is now in place to help jail employees to try and keep a repeat escapee like Dewayne Boykins from walking away.

“We're trying to alleviate this ever happening again," Minden says.