An internal administrative investigation into policies, procedures and security at the Warren County Jail, ordered in the wake of murder suspect Rafael McCloud’s escape, has resulted in the dismissal of a corrections officer and changes in jail security.

Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace declined to release the name of the officer who was fired, citing personnel policies.

He said a criminal investigation conducted simultaneously by the sheriff’s office and the U.S. Marshal’s Service found no evidence McCloud was aided in his escape, either in the jail or during the eight days he was on the lam.

“I take responsibility for my staff, and this should have never happened,” Pace said. “Some of the procedural changes and security reviews have been put in place.

“We’re responsible for the safety of the public, and that means to contain those that are here (because) the court deems necessary to detain, and I hope the overall security and procedural changes we’ve made will prevent this from every happening again.”

Pace said the 109-year-old jail was originally designed to house misdemeanor offenders, trustees, those awaiting trial, convicted offenders and juveniles.

“Now we house pretrial (people),” Pace said. “We have identified certain areas where we will no longer house high-risk inmates because of the design of the cells.”

Changes in personnel and training

Pace declined to discuss specific changes in the jail’s personnel policy, but said the method of staffing and training of those officers working in the jail will be changed.

“The staffing and training will be handled directly under the sheriff’s office training personnel now,” he said.

All members of the jail staff, he said, are trained in the mechanics of the jail by the jail staff, and that will continue.

Additional training, above and beyond what is actually required, will be provided by training staff from within the sheriff’s office, “some of which are certified at the state Training Academy. I have several deputies who are instructors at the Delta Law Enforcement Training Academy in Moorehead.”

Because jail officers work closely with the inmates in the jail, Pace said those officers are not armed because of the potential danger of inmates taking the weapons.

 

The terrible escape

McCloud, who was awaiting trial on capital murder and other offenses in the June 28, 2015, death of Sharen Wilson, escaped from the county jail March 2.

During an 8-week manhunt, McCloud managed to evade officers from multiple agencies until he was shot and killed March 10 after breaking into a home on Fort Hill Drive and holding a family hostage.

Pace would not discuss the changes in security measures at the jail, but said the single prisoner cells, like the one housing McCloud, will no longer hold high-risk inmates. The doors, he said, are solid with a small window and small slot large enough for a meal tray to pass.

“The door to the cell actually has to be opened for day-to-day maintenance, such as changing linen out,” Pace said. “You have the inmate step back and hand the officer the dirty linen and get clean linen, and the officer gets out and closes the door back.”

Under jail procedures, he said, whenever a single person cell is used, a minimum of two officers must be present — one to do the necessary duty and the other to serve as backup. The morning McCloud escaped, he said, the officer going to the cell did not bring a backup.

“McCloud charged the door, and produced what the guard identified to be a shank, or homemade knife,” Pace said. “We were never able to determine the origin of [shank].”

McCloud then walked the officer downstairs, “and with the threat of that guard being injured, a secondary guard in the control room released the button to open the outside door.

“The other officer was only made aware of his (McCloud) being out of the cell when they came off the elevator,” Pace said, adding the procedure when an inmate is seen in a cell block corridor is to sound the jail alarm, and call for backup.

“It happened so quickly he didn’t have time for a backup,” he said. “They did not detect it on camera until he was on the elevator.”

He said a surveillance video showed the events, but would not release it for viewing.

 

‘Lived like an animal’

Immediately after McCloud’s escape, Pace said, “I called the U.S. Marshal’s Fugitive Task Force. “We had help from the Vicksburg Police Department, the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, the Mississippi Department of Wildlife Fisheries & Parks, the National Park Service rangers and the FBI,” he said.

While he was out, Pace said, McCloud stayed primarily in the area of Vicksburg north of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Cherry Street, adding authorities later found evidence where he stayed in the woods and vacant homes.

“We’ll never know how close we were to him,” he said. “We had 30 and 40 officers on the ground from various law enforcement agencies. He managed to evade capture. He was not in a vehicle, he was not in the public, he was not with anyone, so we didn’t have any viable information.

“We had searched all of the structures; we searched every vacant structure in North Vicksburg,” he said.

“It appears he literally lived like an animal and avoided capture. He had no help at all, inside or outside, nor did he plan to leave the area. He was very disheveled the day he was killed; he did not have a vehicle, he did not obtain a weapon.

“When he was killed he was wearing clothes he took from the (Fort Hill) home,” Pace said, adding surveillance videos showed he also took clothes from charity donation receptacles and vacant homes.

The morning he was killed, Pace said, multiple K-9 units from around the state were actually in route to Vicksburg to simultaneously again search every vacant structure in Vicksburg.

 

Community comes together

“It’s sickening that it happened,” Pace said. “My heart goes out to the family that shot McCloud, but I’m glad they were willing and able to protect themselves and no one else got hurt.”

He also complimented the public for its support and cooperation.

“We had phone calls from the public that honestly turned out not necessarily to be accurate sightings, but still people calling in good faith.

“Senior members of the Marshal’s office staff told me after the eight days they had never worked a search in a community where they had more public support for their efforts than they saw in Vicksburg,” Pace said.