A Florida prisoner who faked a fall injury to try to get away was dragged kicking and screaming from the thick brush where he was hidden by a police K-9, authorities said Sunday.
Tony Romine, 29, was found on Saturday in Flagler County in the woods near a gas station. He had been being followed by a K-9 team from the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office.
According to the sheriff’s office, he was hiding in some bushes and plants.
He was caught seven hours after he got away. During the arrest, video shows a K-9 pulling Rommie while she screams in pain.
From the video, it looks like the dog is pulling Romine by his arm.
“Get him please!” he begged the cops, who kept telling Romine to “stop biting my dog!”
Romine says, “Okay, I’ll go.”
An officer asks him, “You thought you were going to get away?” and he seems to be crying at one point. The sheriff’s office said that during Romine’s short escape, they got several calls about possible sightings of him.
Romine was first nabbed on July 3 on a felony warrant for petty theft, violating his pre-trial release, and making fake money. The sheriff’s office said he was in jail when he said he fell and was taken to the hospital for care.
Officials said that investigators later found out that he faked his injury to get away and go back to Ohio, where he is from.
“We worked hard until we caught him. Flager County Sheriff Rick Staly said, “I commend our team for staying on his trail and the community for seeing something, saying something’ until this jerk was caught.” His only accomplishment was to add more arrests to his list of crimes. When he tried to escape again, our K-9, who gets a treat for taking “a bite out of crime,” bit him. Thank goodness no one was hurt, except for this jerk who cried when our K-9 caught him.
After Romine was caught, illegal escape and battery of a police officer without violence were added to the charges against him.
Staly said that an investigation would be started to find out how the deputy who was supposed to be watching Romine got sidetracked and let her get away.
