ROGERS COUNTY, Okla. –
The Rogers County Sheriff says it mistakenly released the wrong inmate from the county jail.
The inmate was found at a gas station a couple blocks away a short time later and taken back into custody.
To put it plainly, Rogers County Sheriff Scott Walton says they messed up- but he says his staff is stretched thin right now and they are trying to do the best they can.
The inmate had been sitting in the Rogers County Jail since December, after being charged by Rogers County prosecutors for having drugs and drug paraphernalia.
He was accidentally released from the jail Monday.
“We committed human error,” said Walton. “We made a mistake. We’ll own that part of it.”
Walton says the mix-up happened because an inmate with a similar name was supposed to be released instead.
“Similar names, different people obviously,” said Walton. “Twenty minutes after that individual walked out the door, booking technician realizes, ‘I made a mistake.”’
The inmate was found by Claremore Police in less than an hour.
Walton says in the 18 years he’s been in the Sheriff’s Office- he has only seen this happen one other time.
“That time, we found him instead of three blocks away, that individual was taken into custody minutes later, two blocks away,” said Walton. “So, don’t want to do it again. But, I think these people, it mean it goes without saying, these people are humans, they’re under a lot of pressure, a lot of scrutiny, and we make good decisions.”
The Sheriff is not making any excuses for what happened- but says it’s challenging to do the job they need to do when they don’t have the right amount of resources.
“We have half of the patrol officers that we need, half the investigators that we need, half the people that we need to run the jail,” said Walton. “It puts a strain on public safety and the product we have to put out there.”
He’s still proud of the people who work in his office.
“I’ll defend these men and women to the end, for the job that they do and what they put up with, the pressure and the speed that things have to move,” said Walton.
The inmate will continue to be held in the Rogers County Jail being held on a $23,000 bond.
Court records show the inmate has previous convictions in Delaware County for other drug charges and carrying contraband into a jail.
