UPDATE:
Matthew Pippin, the inmate who escaped from the Monroe County Jail Thursday, is back in custody.
According to Sgt. Lawson Bittick with the Monroe County Sheriff's Department, Pippin escaped around 11:55 Thursday morning while on a work duty washing cars inside the jail.
"He just saw his opportunity and he took it," Lawson said.
Bittick said Pippin escaped on foot while a vehicle was leaving through a gate at the jail after being washed. After he escaped, Pippin was able to get a change of clothes along with a ride to northern Monroe County.
Bittick added that just after 4 p.m. a Monroe Co. investigator saw Pippin in a vehicle in Craig Road in northern Monroe County. That investigator then initiated a traffic stop with that vehicle. When the vehicle stopped, Pippin fled on foot, but the investigator was able to capture him soon after that.
Bittick said that Pippin was a part of a trustee program at the jail, which inmates must apply, interview and go through a medical evaluation for. He said these inmates are given more leniency and are under less supervision.
When Pippin was out on the work detail washing cars, he was not under direct supervision of a jail officer. They are monitored by video cameras, according to Bittick.
"They are still in the confines of the jail," Bittick said. "They are still being monitored, but it's just not direct supervision. If you go into the interior of our jail, we don't have a direct supervision kind of jail. Direct supervision means a jail officer is always present in that area where those inmates are held. We're not. We have one control room in the middle and they simply look left and right and then monitor them that way. So, it's the same thing. They're just monitoring them with a video camera rather than actual eye to eye."
Bittick also said that inmates must be in the company of a jail guard when they leave the jail building. He added that inmates usually sit on the porch and wait for cars to come and get washed.
He also said that Pippin would not have had access to any of the information or equipment necessary to get out of the jail's gates on his own.
__________________________________
UPDATE: Matthew Pippin is back in custody, according to a news release from the Monroe County Sheriff's Office. He's now being charged with escape.
Pippin was found on Craig Road near Hwy 42 in a vehicle with another person. They're both in custody, according to Sgt. Lawson Bittick.
__________________________________
Police are looking for a man who escaped from the Monroe County jail in Forsyth.
Sgt. Lawson Bittick reports Mathew Pippin escaped Thursday afternoon. Pippin was in custody for a violation of probation for a nonviolent drug offense.
Pippin was last seen in the area of Ensign Road in Forsyth. He was wearing a black and white jumpsuit.
If you have seen Pippin, please contact the Monroe County Sheriff's Office at 478-994-7010 or 911.