By Erin Sullivan
St. Petersburg Times (via The Ledger)
LAND O’ LAKES, Fla. — Deputy Matthew Kadel was taking a man to jail the morning of July 19 when he decided to grab some food.
As he pulled into the McDonald’s drive-through and placed his order, the man in the back seat - Richard Zukoski, arrested on auto burglary and theft charges - used his own handcuff key to free himself and run from the car.
A surveillance video from the McDonald’s, released this week as the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office wrapped up its investigation, shows Kadel running after Zukoski.
It also shows Kadel coming back a few seconds later, without his prisoner, to retrieve his food.
Kadel submitted his resignation Monday after an internal affairs investigation found he violated an inmate transport rule. The Sheriff’s Office’s rule for transporting inmates is that deputies are only to stop for emergencies.
His resignation letter does not refer to the July 19 incident, but confirms he will receive pay for his unused vacation time and will be eligible to file for unemployment compensation.
The incident began when Kadel went to the Gulf Highlands neighborhood in Port Richey before dawn July 19 to investigate a burglary complaint.
Boxes of power tools and lawn equipment, worth hundreds of dollars, had been stolen from a resident’s truck. The items sat on the porch of Zukoski’s home on Newell Drive.
As Kadel headed toward the house to make an arrest, Zukoski pocketed something he figured he might need: a handcuff key that came in a set that he and his girlfriend had bought at a flea market a few years back.
“I was thinking, ‘I want to get home and see my mom,’ ” Zukoski told the Times in a jailhouse interview in July. “I didn’t want to go to prison.”
On the way to the Land O’ Lakes jail, Kadel stopped at the McDonald’s drive-through. Zukoski began to unlock his handcuffs while the deputy ordered food, he told the Times.
Once his hands were free, Zukoski said, he asked the deputy to roll down the back window so he could spit. Instead, Zukoski reached out, opened the door and ran.
It was still dark as Zukoski headed to a friend’s house.
When there was no answer, he said, he hid behind some bushes for about 20 minutes.
“I stepped out to see if I could make it to the next street,” Zukoski told the Times in July. “That’s when the canine came around the corner. I didn’t see it coming at all.”
The incident was the first of two escapes from Pasco deputy patrol cars within a week.
On July 26, Amanda Driggers, 19, slipped the handcuffs off her tiny wrists and pulled back the paneling inside a different patrol car to make her escape, she told the Times.
The car was idling at State Road 52 and U.S. 41 when she slipped out. Cpl. Barry Arnew didn’t realize she was gone until he reached the Land O’ Lakes jail and found an empty set of handcuffs in the backseat.
Driggers was caught early the next morning, napping on a friend’s patio.
Copyright 2009 The Ledger