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Criminal Escapes Without Warrant, Commits More Crimes

By Meredith Mendez (ABC 26 News)

Thursday, November 08 2007

PEARL RIVER, La. - A man who escaped from the Pearl River lock-up is accused of going on a violent crime spree while apparently no police agency outside of Pearl River even knew he was a wanted criminal. Pearl River Police Chief Bennie Raynor says his detectives did everything by the book, but, according to other police agencies, taking a week to get an arrest warrant like this signed is far from normal; in fact it usually happens within just hours.   Pearl River resident Trina Smith responded to the news with this statement, “That shocks me.” There was no public announcement that someone escaped from the Pearl River Jail and neighbors around town say that’s information they needed to know, “I don’t see why they wouldn’t. It actually kind of makes me mad.”   On October 29th, Dennis Smith, who also goes by the alias Dennis Dickerson, walked away from the back area of the Pearl River jail where he was working as a trustee. Smith was being held in jail on misdemeanor traffic charges according to Police Chief Bennie Raynor,  “Around five o-clock we usually lock them back down and I guess he decided he was going to leave before then.”   Normally, police would immediately get an arrest warrant signed so Smith would go on the NCIC computer system, which would have alerted all law enforcement around the country to be on the lookout for Smith. However, when we asked Police Chief Raynor when the warrant was issued, he had several different answers, “We had the warrant signed that night, that evening.” After several moments he said, “I don’t want to say it was signed that evening because we looked for him that evening and couldn’t find him and it probably wasn’t signed until that previous morning.” And then after looking on his computer files, Raynor said, “And on November 5th, Detective White issued a warrant for the arrest of Dennis Smith for simple escape.”   That means, for seven days, Smith was on the loose, without anyone outside of Pearl River looking for him. In the days after his escape, sources say Smith traveled to Mississippi, kidnapped a woman, brought her back across state lines into Louisiana, raped her and then left her severely beaten here along Interstate 59. Later that night, just down the interstate, investigators tell us Smith robbed a 58-year old man at knifepoint after the man helped Smith get gas for his truck. Detectives say both were felony crimes. When we asked Raynor if the warrant had been signed immediately and Smith’s name had been put in the NCIC computer and agencies all around were on the lookout for the wanted criminal if he might have been picked up quicker, Raynor responded, “Yes, ma’am, he may have, I don’t know, yes ma’am.”   It’s a question that Pearl River neighbors want answered as well according to Smith, “If he escaped, why didn’t everybody know that. They do it from St. Tammany Parish Jail, if somebody escapes, it’s on the news, it’s in the paper, they let people know to be on the lookout.”   Raynor said, “This is not a common practice that we wait for two or three days before we get a warrant signed, as soon as we’re able to get one signed, we get it signed, I promise you, you can ask anyone of my policemen, they love to arrest people.”   Early this morning, in Mississippi, Jones County Sheriff’s Deputies finally did catch up to Smith, arresting him at his mother’s home. Smith is currently behind bars in Mississippi until investigators figure out just where he will face criminal charges first. Bookmark

 

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