USM POLICE CARS TO RECEIVE SAFETY CAGES
Released October 15, 1998

HATTIESBURG, Miss -- University of Southern Mississippi
police officials are installing protective cages in all of their
patrol cars to ensure prisoner security and officer safety.

The cages -- called Biddle guards in Mississippi in honor of T.O.
Biddle, a Rankin County deputy who was killed in 1986 by two
prisoners he was transporting -- have been placed in two of the
campus' three patrol cars. One of the cars already had a cage and
the second was installed Oct. 13. The last cage will be installed
when the third patrol car returns from repair work.

"We have a total of five cars," said USM police chief Cecil Wilson,
explaining that his department has a pickup truck and an unmarked
administrative car. "The three patrol cars will have cages."

Biddle cages are wire protective screens that separate the front
and back seats of police cars. The screens, which can be combined
with bullet-proof Plexiglas, are bolted to the sides of the car.

On Oct. 9, campus police arrested two men for possessing a weapon
on campus. After the arrest, one of the two escaped from the
backseat of a campus patrol car that did not have a cage and 
stole the vehicle. No one was hurt in the incident and the vehicle 
was recovered in less than an hour. The suspect, however, remains 
at large.

"Monday (Oct. 12), we interviewed the officer and dissected what
happened,"  said Wilson, adding that the suspects' hands were cuffed
and double-locked behind their backs, and they were in their seat
belts. "He (the officer) did everything he could. But if the car
had a cage, it would not have happened."

Wilson said that when his officers make an arrest, they transport
the suspect to the Forrest County Regional Jail. The campus has no
detention facility.

Still, Wilson said the cages will help ensure his officers' safety.

Biddle cages -- or the lack of them in law enforcement vehicles
across Mississippi -- has caught the public's attention recently.
Earlier this year, two state inmates escaped from Jones
County Sheriff Maurice Hooks, who was transporting them in a
cageless car. The two have been charged in the shooting death of a
Moody, Ala., policeman two days after the escape. The patrolman's
family has since filed a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit against
Jones County and Mississippi.

That -- along with the 1997 shooting deaths of a deputy and a
jailer from Jefferson Davis County who were slain by a prisoner
they were transporting in a car without a cage -- has given rise to
calls for a stronger state law requiring use of the cages.

The new cages for the USM patrol cars are 4-gauge, plastic-coated
wire mesh cages that retail for approximately $130 each, Wilson
said. The cages can be transferred to other vehicles.

"You feel a lot more secure with the cage," said USM patrolman
David Byrd. "It's a lot better than just having open space between
the seats."


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