Peter Hermann

The Baltimore Sun

6:51 p.m. EDT, June 30, 2010

Typically, prisoners who are on work release get to leave the inside of the jail to work outside the fence, and then must return.

David Newton, on home detention awaiting trial on drug and burglary charges, had an opposite course. He would leave his home to go to work inside the jail, and would then return to his house at the end of the day, as a condition of his pre-trial release.

So prison officials were perplexed Wednesday afternoon when they said the 19-year-old Newton, who was not cuffed or shackled, ran from correctional officers who were escorting him to the laundry room at the Baltimore City Detention Center.
 
Authorities said Newton scaled one fence and was climbing over a second along East Monument Street when a correctional officer shot him twice in the leg. He was only hours away from the end of his shift, at which point he would have climbed into a prison van and been driven home.

"He woke up in his own bed, and he could've gone back to his own bed tonight," said Rick Binetti, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

Binetti stressed that extenuating circumstances could have prompted Newton to bolt — an open warrant, perhaps, or fear that he'd be locked up on another charge. But as of Wednesday evening, Newton's reasons for running remained a mystery.

Binetti said the correctional officer who opened fire and another officer who participated in the chase have been placed on desk duty while internal investigators probe the shooting. Binetti refused to identify the officers.

According to Binetti's statement, the correctional officer shot Newton after he refused an order to stop as he tried to flee by climbing over the second fence. The statement does not say whether the officer felt in danger or whether it is permissible for officers to shoot escapees who are running away.

Newton had been on home detention since January, and his trial on drug and burglary charges is scheduled for August. He now faces an additional charge of escape. Newton was treated at Johns Hopkins Hospital.