Every time police officers stop a person on the highway or book him into a jail, they check his name against the FBI's vast fugitive tracking database, known as the National Crime Information Center.
The system can tell them within seconds whether the person is wanted, and for what. And it will tell them how far the agency that wants him is willing to travel to pick him up, a decision that police and prosecutors are required to make in advance.
Those records, obtained by USA TODAY, offer the first public accounting of the extradition practices of more than 8, law enforcement agencies in big cities and small towns throughout the United States. The fugitives included 2, people accused of drunken driving, 2, accused of robbery, 3, accused of sex crimes, 6, wanted for assault, and 9, wanted for fraud as of last May — all marked in FBI records with a code telling police officers not to arrest them if they're found in another state.
The FBI repeatedly refused to provide any information that could identify the fugitives in its database in order to protect their privacy. Some states make it a crime to disclose information from their fugitive databases. The Philadelphia Police Department, like many other agencies, refused to turn over records related to its extradition practices. But police and court files nonetheless detail one serious case after another in which police said they would let suspects go if they surfaced in another state: a man wanted for his role in a gunfight outside a Hialeah, Fla.
A man wanted for shooting his girlfriend to death point-blank in a migrant work camp in Collier County, Fla. A man wanted for rape in Roanoke, Va. Detectives had no difficulty tracking the Roanoke rape suspect, Jerry Lee Wiggins.
Not long after a woman accused him of raping her in , police found him locked up in a Jacksonville jail on charges later dropped that he had stolen a car. But instead of going to get him, police reports show , authorities waited to see whether two other Virginia counties that wanted Wiggins for probation violations would do it. Neither did, so a month later, Wiggins went free.
The city's prosecutor, Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell, said he wouldn't extradite Wiggins because he "did not feel our case had been particularly strong. Many cases don't make the cut. Nearly half of Roanoke's felony warrants are listed as not extraditable in the FBI's database. It's still my tax dollars bringing him back. As an elected official, I think you've got an obligation to consider that," he said. The detective who investigated Wiggins, Dean Boitnott, said he wasn't surprised.
Authorities say a cumbersome extradition process leaves them little choice; to extradite more fugitives, they'd have to divert time and money from other cases. Part of the difficulty is stitched into the United States' basic political structure. Every state is its own sovereign government, so the police can't drag a suspect from one state to another without his permission. Instead, they need to extradite him, a simplified version of the process the United States uses when it wants to retrieve suspects from Canada or France.
The U. Constitution requires that states turn over fugitives to one another, but it doesn't require that the task be simple. Unless a suspect agrees to waive extradition, the signatures of both states' governors and a court order are needed. That means that the paper trail from Camden to Philadelphia winds through the state capitols in Harrisburg and Trenton, a route that can take as little as a few days or as long as four months.
Still, prosecutors in other parts of Pennsylvania said the process is far less cumbersome than Philadelphia authorities make it out to be. Many fugitives waive formal extradition proceedings and agree to be returned quickly because they don't want to sit in jail waiting to be picked up. A whole industry of contractors has sprung up to transport them, usually charging only a few hundred dollars to pick someone up from as far away as North Carolina.
Pennsylvania law allows the city to bill suspects for the cost of extradition if they're ultimately convicted. And besides all that, Camden's jail is 7 miles closer to the Philadelphia courthouse than Philadelphia's own jail is. Other approaches are potentially simpler. Bail bondsmen, for example, are typically authorized to haul a suspect back to court, even from other states.
But Philadelphia, along with other large cities, has largely stamped out its private bail bonds industry because of a history of abuses. Records show Philadelphia does extradite some fugitives, particularly those charged with serious offenses like murder and rape.
Officials from the district attorney's office said they were unable to determine how often they do so, but Camden County officials said their jail sent people to Pennsylvania last year, though not all of them necessarily went to Philadelphia. Nationwide, police and prosecutors are becoming less willing to chase suspects into other states as tight budgets force them to further narrow the list of crimes for which they'll extradite.
For crime victims, that reality can be dismaying. Robin Samson told the police her husband stood 4 feet from her and aimed a shotgun at her face the day she tried to leave him in She stopped packing and ran.
Police in Polk County, Fla. Aten moved to Michigan, and state records show Polk County officials won't pursue him past the state line. It is impossible to say whether cities like Philadelphia are unusually reluctant to pursue their fugitives, or merely unusually candid about it. Despite years of requests from federal authorities, many law enforcement agencies still don't enter all of their fugitives' names into the FBI's nearly year-old database, meaning police in other states likely wouldn't know that a person is wanted.
For example, the police in Buffalo — which ranks among the nation's most violent big cities — had listed just 59 warrants in the database as of May. Stockton, Calif. Other cities claim they will extradite any fugitives from anyplace in the United States, then don't show up to get them. Some high-crime cities like Chicago and Detroit told the FBI that they would extradite suspects on nearly every warrant they entered into the database — about 35, as of May — but don't always do so.
Judges in Washington, D. Even that number almost certainly understates the true number of fugitives the district has put back on the street because it includes only people who were jailed on other states' warrants, and D.
They declined to extradite an kidnapping suspect from California, a robbery suspect from nearby York, Pa. Baltimore officials would not identify the suspects. Many did not have to go far: Prosecutors declined to extradite fugitives charged with burglary, assault and resisting arrest.
Deputy State's Attorney Elizabeth Embry said that usually means prosecutors thought the case wasn't viable. He would also have had to avoid contacting his loved ones. It requires a lot of support. If he flew out of Britain before border staff were alerted, Shepherd could have left Europe along an established route without leaving a trace, the investigator said.
From there he can cross the border into Spain and could then get to Morocco and be in Africa without leaving any footprint. Mr Imossi said the focus would be on building a profile of Shepherd and his acquaintances, before carrying out "intensive surveillance" and door-to-door inquiries.
He would not be living a life of luxury, drinking cocktails on a sandy beach. At some point he will run out of finances and help and will live an uncomfortable life. The stress of evading police would eventually take its toll, Mr Bleksley added. It declined to detail its methods but a spokesman said officers work to "develop intelligence" using both "open sources and police sources of information".
The extradition unit of the Met's serious and organised crime command, known as SCO7, tracks foreign criminals in the UK. The force relies on counterparts in similar units abroad - like the Serious and Organised Crime Team in Holland, which has become a notorious bolthole for British fugitives. In recent years, the Dutch unit has been responsible for capturing James Taylor , Anthony Downes and Kirk Bradley - responsible for knife, gun and grenade attacks in Liverpool.
In the case of Shepherd, the Met would only confirm that the search is "being supported by detectives from other specialist departments". An international arrest warrant has been obtained and law enforcement agencies across the world have been alerted. Det Ch Insp Mick Norman, who is leading the hunt for the force's homicide and major crime command, said Shepherd may be using the accounts of friends or associates to evade arrest and extradition and urged anyone helping him to "do the right thing".
Kevin Moore, a retired chief superintendent with more than 40 years of policing experience, said fugitives were often only caught when arrested for another crime. Despite technological advances - and revelations about the vast reach of Britain's intelligence services - breakthroughs in long-running manhunts also often come from tip-offs. It's a big world. Mr Biddis, who led the team that tracked down Noye in Spain following a tip-off, said police were likely to receive daily suspected sightings of Shepherd, the majority of which are "probably cobblers".
It's like panning for gold. You just have to sift through it all, looking for a nugget. Mr Bleksley believes somebody will recognise Shepherd and contact police, describing it as "his Achilles heel". If he is located abroad, police will face the question of how to bring him back to the UK. In countries with existing extradition treaties - or the 28 members of the EU, which observes European Arrest Warrants - the process would be straightforward, Mr Biddis said.
Elsewhere, police will have to request the Home and Foreign Offices to go through diplomatic channels and the country's judicial process. The agency features 27 people on its most wanted list who have been convicted, or suspected of, crimes including murder, rape and importing class-A drugs.
Every Red Notice request is checked by a specialised task force to ensure it is compliant with our rules. This review takes into account information available at the time of publication. Whenever new and relevant information is brought to the attention of the General Secretariat after a Red Notice has been issued, the task force re-examines the case. Each member country decides what legal value it gives to a Red Notice and the authority of their law enforcement officers to make arrests.
They are used to simultaneously alert police in all our member countries about internationally wanted fugitives. Police in other countries can then be on the watch for them and use the Red Notice to support extradition proceedings. Red Notices help bring fugitives to justice, sometimes many years after the original crime was committed.
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