Philadelphia police investigating how sex assault suspect was mistakenly released

SOUTHWEST PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Philadelphia police say the suspect in an attempted rape, who was mistakenly released from custody Tuesday afternoon, has been found. Now there are serious questions about how this happened.

Russell Alan Bryant was back in police custody as of 9:35 a.m. Wednesday.

At a press conference Wednesday, Philadelphia Police Capt. Sekou Kinebrew assured that they are taking the incident seriously.

"This shouldn't happen in a perfect world so we have to do figure out what we need to do to close this up to make sure this doesn't happen," said Capt. Kinebrew.

Bryant was "inadvertently released from custody," on Tuesday. He had been transported from Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Holmsburg, where he was being held for attempted rape.

He was brought to an unrelated theft arraignment at the Close Circuit TV unit at the Philadelphia Police 18th District Headquarters.

He was not held on that theft charge, but his prison papers should have assured he stayed in custody.

"The paperwork from the prisons, in a perfect world, is supposed to be married up with the paper work for the arrest," said Capt. Kinebrew.

But it's not a perfect world. The married papers separated, and Bryant was shown the door.

"When he was deemed releasable on that secondary lesser offense, personnel from CCTV released him out right," said Kinebrew.

Realizing the mistake, police made contact with the victim of the sexual assault, taking measures to insure her safety.

Then in a twist Wednesday morning, Bryant walked into the Drexel police station where he has apparently has had issues before. He was recognized and arrested.

Philadelphia police are looking at what went wrong and reviewing policies, including one that apparently does not allow for the using of a Prison CCTV in cases of new arraignments.

----------

Send a breaking news alert
Report a correction or typo
Learn more about the 6abc apps