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NBC News – by Lori Brusehaver and Tracy Connor
A manhunt was underway Monday for an inmate who escaped from a Detroit courthouse by stabbing a sheriff’s deputy with a makeshift shank, stealing his uniform and keys, and carjacking a minivan, authorities said.
“He is armed and dangerous,” Detroit Police Chief James Craig said of the suspect, identified as convicted armed robber Abraham Pearson, 25, who uses the alias Derreck White.
The deputy, who was unarmed and working alone, was putting three inmates in a seventh-floor holding cell at the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice and had just uncuffed Pearson when he pulled a homemade weapon, officials said.
This undated photo provided by the Wayne County Sheriffs Department shows Abraham Pearson, alias Derreck White, 25. Authorities say White, awaiting sentencing in an armed robbery, is on the run Monday, Sept. 9, 2013 after stabbing a sheriff’s deputy several times in the neck and carjacking a motorist while escaping from a downtown Detroit courthouse.
“He used a comb that had been fashioned into a shank to overcome the deputy, stabbed him several times in the neck,” Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon told reporters.
“After he stabbed the deputy he took the deputy’s clothing, he took his keys, he got on the prisoner elevator and he escaped from the building.”
The unidentified deputy had several puncture wounds to the neck but they were not life-threatening, officials said. He was able to call for help using a courthouse phone, but the inmate was in the wind by then.
Once outside, Pearson stole a 2000 gray Dodge Voyager from a 58-year-old woman but later ditched it and is now believed to be on foot, police said.
Pearson was described as a 5-foot-6 black male, weighing about 155 pounds, last seen wearing a white T-shirt and gray pants. He has a forearm tattoo that reads “Hot Boyz.” according to prison records.
Pearson spent more than five years in prison for assault during an armed robbery and breaking and entering before being paroled in January 2012, officials said.
He was locked up later that winter for a month for failing to report to his parole officer, and absconded again when he was released. In September 2012 he was arrested on carjacking, armed robbery and weapons charges and convicted in a non-jury trial, prison officials said.
He was due to be sentenced for those crimes when he bolted.
His lawyer, James Howarth, said he believes Pearson has mental issues and wanted to mount an insanity defense, but two psychiatrists found him competent.
“In my initial conversation with him, he had no knowledge of the incident and talked about hallucinations,” Howarth told NBC News. “He appeared not to be in any touch with reality whatsoever.”
Howarth said Pearson was offered a plea deal that would have given him the minimum sentence of nine years but turned it down. After being convicted, he was likely facing 15 years.
“I imagine it weighed pretty heavily on his head,” Howarth said.
He encouraged his client to surrender.
“I have concerns of him hurting himself, concerns of him hurting someone else and concerns of people hurting him,” the lawyer said. “He’s got to know the amount of trouble he is in right now can only get worse unless he gives himself up.”
Officials said courthouse procedures would be reviewed because of the escape but it does not appear the deputy broke any rules.
A massive manhunt is underway in Detroit, Mich., for a prisoner who escaped from the courthouse after taking a stabbing a sheriff’s deputy and carjacking a minivan. WDIV’s Shawn Ley reports.
“Usually, we have a deputy transport anywhere up to five prisoners alone — it’s a staffing issue,” Napoleon told NBC station WDIV.
He said courthouse metal detectors would not have picked up the plastic comb smuggled in by Pearson.
“He obviously paid very close attention to how the process works,” the sheriff said.
Follow Tracy Connor on Twitter at @TracyConnorNYC
tell the county sheriff to
get a fu* ing clue.
put out in his county….which
reasonable passed laws…(including fed, state, local)..laws that 8th graders can understand and might have written, will be enforced ….and all others passed and applicable to his elected authority to enforce……will not be enforced..
there by the whole picture balances itself out and situations as this one will be very rare…..not only that, you or I won’t be in jail for “thinking”
People of reason are not that far apart….People who want to over throw this commi situation, and I am one of them, and people who do recognize that some rules are needed and that there is a need to follow those rules up…all those of both camps…..are able to stear the ship in the right direction……..
seems to me………..so lets do it!!!!!!!