• By BOB ANDERSON
• Advocate Florida parishes bureau
• Published: Nov 23, 2009 - Page: 1B

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

A trusty escaped from the Livingston Parish Detention Center on Sunday, but was en route to a hospital with a dog bite within a couple of hours, officials with the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office said.

Chris E. Booty, 41, of Denham Springs, escaped while taking garbage to a dumpster, said Perry Rushing, chief of operation for the Sheriff’s Office.

Deputies got on Booty’s trail quickly because someone reported seeing a man wearing a black-and-white-striped jumpsuit running from the jail toward a wooded area to the east, Rushing said.

Authorities from a dozen law enforcement agencies set up a perimeter, while a helicopter from the Sheriff’s Office hovered over the area and a K-9 team got on Booty’s track, Rushing said.

Booty left the detention center at 11 a.m. and Yago, a police dog, was on his trail within an hour, Rushing said.

Deputies had other dogs on the scene, but waited for Yago, a German Shepherd, because he is such a superb tracker, the chief of operations said.

The person who spotted Booty fleeing showed deputies exactly where Booty entered the woods, and shortly after 12:30 p.m. Yago had “latched on to his right arm,” Rushing said.

Booty, who remained in an area hospital under guard Sunday afternoon, also suffered a “gash to his leg” that appeared to be unrelated to the apprehension by the dog, Rushing said.

“He was in a lot of pain, but said he didn’t know” how he had cut his leg, Rushing said. “He ripped it on something.”

When returned to jail Booty will have a count of simple escape, which can carry an additional sentence of two to five years, lodged against him, authorities said.

Booty’s current sentence is five years for misappropriation of funds, theft and issuing worthless checks, Rushing said.

Booty is also awaiting trial on violation of a protective order and unauthorized entry into an inhabited dwelling, Rushing said.

Booty has been working in the detention center’s kitchen as a trusty. He is one of 170  Louisiana Department of Corrections inmates among the 539 inmates in the Livingston Parish Detention Center, the Sheriff’s Office reported.