A prisoner receiving medical treatment was arrested Tuesday after police say he escaped from UNC Hospitals, stole a campus police car and led officers on a high-speed pursuit.
Farley Linford Bernard, 46, was arrested on Interstate 40 westbound at about 1:30 p.m. after wrecking the police cruiser near Mebane, in Alamance County.
At 12:49 p.m., police received an alert that Bernard, an inmate at the high-security Pasquotank Correctional Institution in Elizabeth City, had escaped from the two armed corrections officers accompanying him at UNC Hospitals, said UNC Department of Public Safety spokesman Randy Young.
Young said neither Bernard nor any campus police officers were injured during the chase.
After a UNC police officer near the hospital matched Bernard to the suspect description and approached him, the inmate rushed into the police vehicle’s driver seat. The officer then deployed a Taser on Bernard, who sped down Emergency Room Drive and turned westbound on Manning Drive, where two more UNC police vehicles engaged in the chase. Bernard then turned northbound on South Columbia Street and veered eastbound on Franklin Street before authority to continue the pursuit passed to the Chapel Hill Police Department.
He eventually turned westbound on Interstate 40, leading a chase that included officers from the Hillsborough Police Department and Orange and Alamance county sheriff’s departments, along with the State Highway Patrol.
Stephanie Crayton, the media relations manager for UNC Hospitals, said the hospital conducts a risk assessment for every inmate who receives treatment.
Crayton said hospital officials meet at least once per year with the Department of Correction to craft an effective security policy, though law enforcement is ultimately responsible for the custody of inmates. The hospital will soon begin an investigation into Bernard’s escape, she said.
“It makes you pause and take a look and make sure you are doing everything you can,” Crayton said.
