The Tribune

11pm update: Police report that escaped prisoner Jason Jerome Rolle is in custody.

Rolle was arrested shortly after 9.30pm on Friday off Farrington Road by officers from the Selective Enforcement Team.

A PRISONER who escaped from a police bus on Wulff Road on his way back to prison on Friday afternoon has been described as “armed and dangerous” by police in New Providence.

Jason Jerome Rolle, 21 and convicted for possession of dangerous drugs, is the subject of an island-wide manhunt by police after he reportedly got away from a police transport vehicle on Wulff Road near Claridge Road around 4pm while being escorted to the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services (BDCS).

Rolle is described as a dark brown male who frequents the Farrington Road and Marshall Road area.

Police said that they consider Rolle to be armed and dangerous and urge the public not to approach him if spotted but to call police at 919, Crime Stoppers at 328-TIPS (8477) or 1-242-300-8477 (Family Islands).

In February police searched for two weeks before recapturing convicted murderer Ormand Leon, who had escaped from a police bus taking prisoners from the courts to the Department of Correctional Services on February 2.

According to police, Leon escaped from the bus on York Street, off East Bay Street, after leaving a Supreme Court hearing at which he was told he would be sentenced for murder in two weeks.

He was captured by officers at a home in bushes on Fire Trail Road in southwest New Providence after being on the run for two weeks. On February 17, Leon was sentenced to 41 years, six months, two weeks and one day.

The results of a police investigation into how the 26-year-old escaped have yet to be released.

One week after his escape, Commissioner of Police Ellison Greenslade said the Royal Bahamas Police Force was “looking into new devices to use” for transporting prisoners to and from the BDCS. The commissioner also defended the officers who were transporting Leon when he escaped.

“What I recognise now is we are going to have to look at different devices because the traditional devices we have used have sometimes let us down. But this escape was not a question of whether the officers are capable, but it’s when you tell me I am going to prison for an extended period or I am going to be sentenced to death, that person then says ‘boy this is final’ and their head kicks in and that person becomes animalistic,” Commissioner Greenslade said.