RIVERDALE, GA (Headline News USA) (Copyright © 2025) – Just before sunrise on Saturday, a Clayton County inmate slipped his cuffs, walked out of a hospital, and set off a manhunt that would stretch across county lines before crashing to a halt.

The escapee, 33-year-old James Damonte Beasley, had been transported from the Clayton County Jail to Southern Regional Medical Center in Riverdale for medical treatment. What should’ve been a routine overnight hospital guard assignment turned into a full-blown security breach.

At around 5:20 a.m., Beasley somehow shed both his handcuffs and leg shackles—while still under the eye of a sheriff’s deputy, according to authorities—and walked out the hospital doors. He was wearing jeans and a blue shirt with white lettering, not jail garb. Authorities later confirmed he changed into those clothes while at the hospital.

The details of how exactly Beasley got free remain murky. “We’re looking into whether policies were violated or procedures weren’t followed,” Clayton County Sheriff Levon Allen told FOX 5 Atlanta, confirming that an internal investigation is already underway and disciplinary hearings are likely for the officer involved.

It didn’t take long for the inmate to blend in with the early morning commuters. Investigators believe Beasley boarded a MARTA bus shortly after his escape and was later spotted at the East Point MARTA station, roughly 15 miles away. That’s where the situation escalated.

According to police, Beasley approached a driver at the station and carjacked their black Ford F-150. The victim was not injured. Officers from multiple agencies picked up his trail, and after a short pursuit, the stolen truck crashed. Beasley was back in custody by 12:35 p.m.—just over seven hours after slipping away.

In addition to his original charges, Beasley now faces a raft of new ones: escape, robbery, theft by taking a motor vehicle, entering auto, hit and run, and reckless driving. He’ll be answering to both Clayton and Fulton counties.

But while the chase is over, the fallout is just beginning.

This isn’t the first time Clayton County’s jail system has come under scrutiny. In 2024, a convicted murderer was mistakenly released from the same jail and was found weeks later in Florida, as reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Saturday’s breach reignites long-standing concerns about how inmates are handled when they leave jail walls for off-site medical visits—routines that should come with ironclad procedures and double layers of oversight.

“This could’ve ended very differently,” said one law enforcement source familiar with the case, who asked not to be named. “You’ve got a guy out in the public, free, desperate—carjacking someone to get away. If someone had been hurt, the questions we’re asking today would’ve come a lot sooner.”

For now, Beasley is back behind bars. The sheriff’s office says changes may be on the way once the internal review wraps up. But in a county already grappling with high-profile errors, this latest breach may be one mistake too many.

Image Credit: Clayton County Sheriff’s Office