A manhunt is underway for a suspect in a 2021 killing who was accidentally released from a detention center in Indianapolis last week. Kevin Mason, 28, was “mistakenly released” from an adult detention center in Marion County on September 13, two days after his arrest, “due to a faulty records review” by staff, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office said, CNN reports. It’s unclear whether he’s still in the county, said sheriff’s Col. James Martin. Mason was arrested in Indiana on three Minnesota warrants, including one asking he be held on suspicion of murder in connection with a 2021 shooting in Minneapolis, CNN reports. The other warrants relate to an alleged parole violation and firearms possession.
He was released after a sheriff’s clerk thought she was correcting duplicate bookings for the inmate and removed two holds in his file. The next day, a clerk in Minnesota lifted the final hold in Mason’s file and did not catch the error that happened the day before. Two inmate records clerks involved in Martin’s release have been fired. “This was an error – this should not have happened. Mason should not have been released from our custody,” Martin said. A woman described as being Mason’s girlfriend was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of assisting a criminal, said Marion County Sheriff Kerry Forestal. Mason had called her for a ride when he was released, and “we’ve been tracking that girlfriend since,” Forestal said. The sheriff’s office waited six days to alert the public of Mason’s accidental release because it wanted to maintain a “tactical advantage,” Martin told reporters. “We have used this time as the quietness of the situation to not further run him underground and send him running further than what we wanted him to,” Martin said.
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