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Court Didn't Monitor Suspected Drunken Driver

Man Released Without Monitoring Device, Causes Deadly Crash

POSTED: 5:13 pm CST November 5, 2009
UPDATED: 6:54 pm CST November 5, 2009

A suspected drunken driver was not properly monitored by the court, police said.

Related: Watch This Story | Video | Video: Child's Family Outraged | Images | Video

On Friday, Oct. 30, Judge Mark Fishburn signed an order placing Thompson to be released from jail on house arrest. Once he was released, he was supposed to wear an electronic monitoring device.

Later that same day, Percy Thompson left jail, but never got his ankle bracelet.

On Halloween night, police said, he caused the crash that killed 3-year-old Darius Buchanan on Brick Church Pike. Thompson had a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit when he crashed.

"The electronic monitoring installation operation is an 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday-through-Friday operation," said trial courts administrator Larry Stevenson. "So by the time he was released on Friday evening at 8 o'clock, that office was closed."

Because of the way the system works, no rules were broken. The fact he was released on Friday night meant he had until Monday morning to get the monitoring device.

"What you have to understand about electronic monitoring is it's a tool, not a guarantee," Stevenson said.

Even if he were wearing the monitoring device, the matter wouldn't have been addressed until Monday morning.

"Nobody is going to immediately show up and pick you up and take you directly to jail," Stevenson said. "That's not the way the system works."

A Metro Jail spokeswoman said the jail gets paperwork from the courts telling it when to release someone and that is really the only part the jail plays.

Thompson had been in jail since Aug. 29 on charges of vandalism, disorderly conduct, assault, trespassing and violating probation.

The new vehicular homicide charges he now faces from Sunday's fatal crash could possibly keep him in jail for years.

The Department of Safety said that despite being caught and charged eight times for driving on a suspended license, Thompson did have a valid Tennessee drivers license at the time of Sunday's crash.

Thompson, in court Thursday morning, has been charged with several counts, including vehicular homicide and evading arrest.

Thursday, three witnesses testified that Thompson was driving erratically the night of the crash.

The judge bound his case over to a grand jury.


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