HOMESTEAD, Fla., Nov. 2 (UPI) -- A prisoner serving multiple life sentences escaped a South Florida prison, and local police were not informed for several hours after he was confirmed missing.
Ronald McCoy, 39, was serving two life terms and two 40-year sentences for multiple armed robberies but was allowed into an off-limits area of Dade Correctional Institution Friday, sources told the Miami Herald. McCoy made his escape that morning using broken doors and gates, and prison workers didn't confirm he was gone until 1 p.m.
A spokeswoman for the Miami-Dade police said that the prison reported the escape to the department at 5:15 p.m. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement was notified 30 minutes later, and police in Homestead, a community south of the prison, were informed at 6 p.m.
"Escape procedures were immediately implemented upon the determination that the inmate was unaccounted for," the Department of Corrections said in a statement.
Bill Curtis, spokesman for the union representing the correctional workers at the facility, noted the inexperience and shorthandedness of staff at the prison, whose warden was fired over the summer after allegations surfaced of prisoner abuse and unexplained inmate deaths.
"The degradation of the department over the past four years has progressed from compromising the safety of inmates to the safety of officers and now to the safety of the public,'' Curtis said.
The search for McCoy is now statewide. He escaped on Halloween, possibly explaining how his orange jumpsuit did not draw attention. Investigators say he may have gone to Tampa, where part of his family resides.
