Inmate’s Escape Baffles Officials

Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials, still mystified by the disappearance of an inmate Friday evening, said Wednesday they are attempting to determine whether anyone inside the department assisted in the escape or whether Kevin Jerome Pullum stole an employee’s identification card to flee.

“Anything’s possible,” said Capt. Richard Barrantes, who oversees the department’s Inmate Reception Center in downtown Los Angeles, where inmates are booked into and out of the system. “Nothing has been ruled out.”

Pullum, 31, was convicted of attempted murder on Friday in Van Nuys Superior Court. Sheriff’s officials said he has been seen by friends and associates. He has reportedly told them he knows he will get caught but wanted needed some freedom first. The officials said Pullum has very little money and is not expected to go far.

A bloodhound detected Pullum’s scent at the home of his sister in Monterey Park, where a break-in recently occurred, the Sheriff’s Department said.

Deputies from the department’s Major Crimes Bureau searched various locations late into the night Tuesday, but Pullum continued to elude them. The department also changed its description of Pullum, saying he is 75 pounds heavier and two inches taller than previously stated. Pullum, they say, is an African American, 6 feet tall and 240 pounds.

The department announced Wednesday that it also is investigating a brutal fight Monday evening in the downtown Twin Towers jail in which one inmate was so badly beaten that he is on life support. Sheriff’s homicide Det. Ray Peavy said the victim, whose family has not yet been notified, was beaten by his cellmate, Erwin McNaughton, who is in jail for vandalism. Deputies say they found the victim, being held for robbery, face down in his cell with McNaughton kicking his head.

Meanwhile, Barrantes and others continued to examine their records Wednesday to determine how the system broke down in the Pullum case. Inmates wear 2-inch-wide plastic identification bracelets that deputies scan with hand-held devices. According to department records, Pullum’s wristband was scanned six times on Friday--including three times after his conviction that day. Deputies scan the bracelets to track inmates’ movement through the jail and court system. The wristbands are clasped with plastic rivets and are fastened tightly.

A computer record of Pullum’s last day in custody shows that his bracelet was first scanned at 5:03 a.m., when he entered the “courtline”--the area in the downtown Inmate Reception Center where inmates are held before they go to court. At 6:38 a.m., Pullum’s wristband was scanned by bus transportation services deputies at the Reception Center and then again at 8:13 a.m. at the Van Nuys Courthouse.

The record then shows that Pullum’s wristband was scanned by the bus transportation deputies at 6:34 p.m. in Van Nuys. Deputies back at the Inmate Reception Center scanned the wristband at 7:38 p.m., showing that he--or someone wearing his bracelet--had arrived there that evening. Pullum’s wristband was last scanned at 7:40 p.m. in another part of the center, right before he would have been returned to his cell in the Men’s Central Jail.

“A couple things that are troubling for us is that the wristband was scanned here; either he came back here, or someone else was wearing it,” Barrantes said.

A check of wristbands worn by the inmates who went to the Van Nuys court on Friday showed that all of them returned except for two who were released directly from the court, Barrantes said. The department plans to interview the two former inmates, he said.

From Sheriff Lee Baca on down, sheriff’s officials say Pullum could have switched his identification bracelet with someone else. But the officials, who say Pullum is the first prisoner to escape in several years, cannot figure out how it could have happened.

Officials are also exploring other alternatives, including the possibility of an inside job. For example, they are checking all 800 employees’ identification cards at the Inmate Reception Center to determine whether anyone helped Pullum by giving him their identification card.

The Sheriff’s Department came under scrutiny and controversy several years ago when it erroneously released several inmates. Eleven years ago, a convicted murderer escaped, but it took officials three weeks to discover that he was gone. In that case, a deputy listed the murderer as boarding a bus for state prison, but it was later learned he never took the bus. The Sheriff’s Department blamed that escape on human error and the pressures of its high-volume, overburdened jail system, the largest in the country.

In 1987, a suspected Colombian drug dealer escaped after someone, possibly a sheriff’s deputy, sent a message on the computer system authorizing his release. Later that year, a man awaiting trial on a murder charge fell to his death while attempting to escape from the now-closed Hall of Justice jail.

Hundreds of inmates are constantly being moved from their cells to other locations. Dozens, sometimes hundreds, fail to appear for court dates, forcing deputies to spend hours searching for them within the jail system.

On Wednesday, for example, 1,100 inmates were scheduled to leave the jails for court hearings. Of those, 57 failed to appear for their bus ride to court, sheriff’s deputies said.

Of those “miss-outs,” about half were located.

Barrantes and others said they were not concerned about those missing inmates, saying they believe they are in the jail and are not considered escapees. On Wednesday, the department housed 18,871 inmates.

The department recently completed a pilot program in which about 2,000 inmates wore identification bracelets with their photos on them. Barrantes said he would like to expand that program to every inmate.

“I’m looking forward to finding out how he [Pullum] did this,” Barrantes said, adding that Pullum, who had been in custody since January, knew the system well.

“He knew the routine.”