By Matt Lakin
The News Sentinel
KNOX COUNTY, Ky. — The dash across the room took about three seconds, the struggle with guards a little more than a minute.
That’s the timeline a security video puts on what authorities call a failed bid for freedom by a teenage double-slaying defendant.
The video, made public Monday, shows Brandon C. Fannin, 17, walk past a guard on the way from his cell at Knox County’s Richard L. Bean Juvenile Service Center to take a shower Saturday just before 6:15 p.m. The video shows Fannin suddenly drop his towel, lay his soap on a table and bolt across a day room to punch the guard in the face.
“My guy didn’t know what was happening at first, but he did everything by the book,” saidRichardBean,thecenter’s superintendent.
The video shows the guard, Carl E. Mills Jr., wrestle Fannin to the ground and struggle with him for about 48 seconds before two other guards arrive. Within about a minute, Fannin appears to be subdued. A few minutes later, the guards walk Fannin out in handcuffs and shackles.
“My guy just held onto him,” Bean said. “He said he didn’t want to hurt the young man.”
Bean said Fannin, who already faces two first-degree murder charges in the shooting deaths of his grandparents at their home in Hawkins County in April, threatened to kill Mills if the guard didn’t ask a control-room operator to unlock the doors.
The center houses Fannin as part of a contract with Hawkins County. Prosecutors will try the boy as an adult but can’t house him in a jail until he turns 18.
Fannin remained in an isolation cell Monday under a suicide watch. Bean said he’ll consult with Knox County prosecutors later this week on filing charges.
Mills wasn’t hurt and has returned to work, Bean said.
“He was surprised, because the boy had written our guy a letter that thanked him for being so nice to him,” Bean said.
Copyright 2011 ProQuest Information and Learning