Accused Drug Dealer Tries To Escape Custody In Miami-Dade Courthouse

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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Yakevis Jones, 21, was captured Tuesday morning after causing quite a stir at the Miami-Dade criminal courthouse on NW 12 Street.

Jones was in court room 2–2 when Judge Dennis Murphy ordered him taken into custody for violation of probation.

A police officer was putting Jones in the so-called box, where a jury would sit, when the accused dope dealer and purveyor of stolen property decided he would rather not be handcuffed.

Judge Murphy's bailiff spoke with CBS4's Gary Nelson, with the provision his name not be used. Bailiff's deal with a lot of a dangerous people.

"The liaison was going to take him into custody, and he ran out of the courtroom over the benches, over the rails," the bailiff said.  "He jumped the benches, jumped the rails."

That's when the whole courthouse got jumping. Corrections officers and police officers ran from floor to floor checking court rooms, hallways and escalators.

"Coming down, coming down!" an officer screamed as he made his way past others on an escalator.

Jones was captured scarcely a block away, near the office of State attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle.

A legion of men and women in uniform escorted him down the street, up the stairs of the courthouse and straight to a holding cell.

Judge Murphy's bailiff said in the 16 years he's worked in court room 2-2, he's never had an inmate bolt from the box before.

There have been similar incidents in other court rooms, however, but like Jones, defendants who take it on the lam from court always get caught.

In addition to charges of possession and delivery of marijuana, and dealing in stolen property, Jones now faces an escape charge.

In Florida escape is a 2nd degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.