Man commits murder after removing prosthetic leg with ankle GPS
WASHINGTON - A review is underway at the District's Pre-Trial Services agency after a GPS monitoring device was incorrectly placed on a man's prosthetic leg.
That man, 34-year-old Quincy Green, took off his leg and committed a murder.
Dana Hamilton was shot to death on Southern Avenue last month and police had no suspects for six days until someone dropped a dime on Green. He was fitted with the GPS device after he had been arrested for carrying a pistol without a license.
After receiving the tip on Green, police checked camera footage from the surrounding area and according to a nine page affidavit the gunman was spotted, with an obvious limp.
Authorities filed a search warrant and inside Green's residence officials recovered a box from the living room, inside the box was a prosthetic leg with a GPS tracking device. A device record showed that it had barely moved in a 72 hour period.
"Very simply it was human error," said Cliff Keenan, the Director of the Pre-trial Services Agency for the District of Columbia.
This agency monitors defendants facing charges in court.
"The contract through which we have contracted for services includes putting onto the individual defendants the actual GPS bracelet and one would assume that the person doing the installation would know not to put it on to a prosthetic device, we don't know what the company has been able to find out about how this happened under these particular circumstances other than it was a violation of protocols," said Keenan.
The district did away with cash bond years ago and instead defendants are released on their own recognizance or fitted with one of the GPS tracking devices from Sentinel Services of California.
"With this company over the last three years we have had nearly five thousand placements of GPS devices on individuals," said Keenan. "As of today we have about 480 people in the community with a GPS device this is the first time the company or I have heard of this incident or this kind of incident happening".
An incident that's also angered the DC Police union.
"From what I understand the device has to be put skin to device and they sent somebody out to put this device on and it's not touching its skin," said Russell Mullins, Jr., Executive Steward, DC Police Union. "I guess our biggest concern is we are out there every day putting our life on the line for citizens and making sure they are safe and then someone turns around and does something like this that lets them back out."
The court affidavit says that in the days leading up to the killing, Green, was seen several times near the intersection of Chesapeake and Southern. The exact location he was told to stay away from, indicating the GPS device he was supposed to be wearing was somewhere else.
The motive for the murder is still unclear.