The government was trying to save the cost of having Marshals escort this guy so they gave him a bus ticket and waved bye-bye.
From the CW31:
LAS VEGAS (AP) ― Dwayne Keith Fitzen — “Shadow” to fellow inmates at the federal prison in Waseca, Minn. — was halfway through his 24-year sentence when prison officials decided to move him to a facility in California.
To make the transfer, the Bureau of Prisons did something fairly routine for the government agency: It bought Shadow a one-way bus ticket and sent him, traveling unsupervised and unmarked, on the two-day trip.
Fitzen was 55 at the time, a motorcycle gang member convicted of dealing cocaine. He got off the bus in Las Vegas, about 400 miles short of his scheduled destination, and became a fugitive. Five years later he’s still at large.
Fitzen got off the bus in Las Vegas, then went to a bank and withdrew $12,000 in cash, according to U.S. marshals, who are still looking for him. He has reportedly been spotted a few times since his escape, but has otherwise lived up to his nickname.
Bus companies have no idea when inmates are being transferred. Greyhound in particular has asked the federal prison system several times to stop transferring convicts on its fleet.
“We feel this is an inherent safety risk to our customers and our employees as well,” Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh said.
Greyhound executives learned of the transfer program in 2005 and complained. Prison officials tried to appease them, writing a letter noting that of the 77 inmates who escaped during unescorted transfers from October 2003 to September 2005, all but 19 were recaptured or returned to custody.
Uncle has no idea how many prisoners have been transferred this way since the program started in the nineties. But they estimate that no more than 1 in 500 prisoners have absconded and they think, but aren’t certain, that no more than 180 prisoners have taken advantage of this get-out-of-jail-free-card since 2006.
Typical bunch of useless government pencil pushers. –”We don’t know how many guys we’ve sent on this free bus ride, but it was a bunch of ‘em, and we don’t think very many of them ran away.”
