Surveillance video shows customer and clerk capture escaped inmate at Phoenix gas station
PHOENIX - Phoenix Police officials say they are starting an internal review on how a man managed to escape from a police precinct.
The incident happened at around 8:00 p.m. on December 7 at a police station in the area of 39th Avenue and Cactus Road. The suspect was taken to the police station due to outstanding warrants for aggravated assault on a police officer and resisting arrest.
"During the processing, officers lost sight of him while inside a north Phoenix police station. The man had ran out the back door of the precinct and away from the area," read a portion of the statement.
Police say at around 8:45 p.m., people at a gas station in the area detained a man who was in handcuffs, and then called police.
"At no time did the man pose a threat to the community. He was taken to the hospital for precaution."
Later, police identified the escaped suspect as 29-year-old Derek Posey, saying he "was booked into jail on charges of escape along with multiple outstanding arrest warrants."
Customer and clerk talk about tackling Posey
After Posey escaped, police immediately began circling the area, but it was Joshua Shipmon, a customer at the Shell gas station on 35th Avenue and Cactus, who saw Posey with handcuffs.
"I heard helicopters.. talking on the intercom and they said something about staying in and we walked in here to get something to drink and the guy walked in, a hat covering his handcuffs."
In the surveillance video, you can clearly see the handcuffs as the cashier, Nasir Qasim, hands Posey some matches.
"It was my own moral judgment to give him a chance, but when my buddy said no, we can't he ran from the cops. Then I say ok, no we can't and that's when we hold him down until the cops came."
Shipmon added, "I come out and put my drinks right there and just as I got to the door, that's when he tried to rush out the door."
Posey never made it out of the store.
"Stop, stop, stop, stop, dude!"
Once Qasim saw Shipmon try to stop Posey, he jumped over the counter to help, eventually pulling Posey down to the ground.
"He was telling me, 'It's a prank, it's a prank, my buddy's pulled a prank on me,' and I said, listen bro, if it's a prank, the cops are going to come take the handcuffs off, and you go home, but of course those were real handcuffs."
Officers arrested Posey roughly three minutes later.
"He was like, ‘Let me go, let me go, I need to get out of here,’ and I said you're not going nowhere, and I was just holding him down and one of the cops came from Church's right over here," said Shipmon.
Police say Posey had outstanding warrants for aggravated assault on a police officer and resisting arrest.
Posey's bond is set at $10,000.