Jailbreaks seem like one of those “old-timey” movie setups—like being trapped in quicksand—but they’re popping up in the news more and more recently.
To give themselves the best chance of busting out, criminals try to get clever, and it doesn’t usually work. Florida jailbird Anthony Romine escaped from a jail in Flagler County, Florida, on July 27, only to be caught and returned 7 hours later.
And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for that pesky police dog. That’s right, the hero of the story is a K-9 unit who dragged the 29-year-old out of bushes where he was hiding from the cops on Saturday. A Flagler county sheriff’s team was searching for the missing inmate and they tracked him to some woods behind a local gas station.
Although details are not yet clear, it appears Romine faked an injury from an alleged fall as part of his escape. A law enforcement officer in charge of supervising him somehow became distracted, and the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office has opened an investigation into how the escape happened. Romine was apparently trying to get back to his home state of Ohio.
Romine’s criminal career seems to have started years ago, but he found himself in the clink most recently after cops arrested him on July 3. There as a felony warrant for petty theft, for violating conditions of his bond, and for counterfeiting. By faking his fall injury, Romine convinced jail officials to take him to a hospital where he was able to evade his guards.
Footage from the arrest shows Romine screaming in apparent pain as the police dog dragged him out from his hidey-hole in the underbrush. Romine started biting the dog in an effort to escape him, which prompted Sheriff’s deputies to shout “stop biting my dog.” Realizing the jig was up, Romine begged the officers to call off the dog and said “all right, I’ll go.”
After his capture deputies seemed bemused by Romine’s escape attempt. One asked the convict if he thought he was really going to escape and get away with it.
County Sheriff Rick Staley congratulated his team on the capture of “this dirtbag.”
