Two prison employees fired after Grant Hardin’s escape exposes major security failures
The ADC has confirmed the termination of two employees at the North Central Unit in Calico Rock following the high-profile escape of Grant Hardin.
Hardin, who escaped from the North Central Unit prison on May 25, impersonated a corrections officer and pushed a cart through a secure gate.
He was captured June 6, just a mile and a half from the prison near Moccasin Creek, after tracking dogs picked up his scent.
Hardin is now being held at the supermax Varner Unit and is facing an additional charge of second-degree escape.
His disappearance triggered a massive two-week manhunt and was caught with the help of state police, U.S. Marshals, the FBI, Border Patrol, dog teams, helicopters, and drones.
An internal investigation uncovered critical breaches in protocol that directly contributed to Hardin’s escape. According to personnel records two employees, Justin Delvalle and William Walker, were terminated for multiple violations of DOC conduct standards, including inadequate job performance, inattentiveness on duty, and failure to follow supervisor instructions.
DOC Director Dexter Payne told the Board of Corrections the department is treating these dismissals as a matter of accountability, saying it’s not a policy issue, but a personnel issue.
The department says Justin Delvalle admitted to allowing the inmate to clean the chemical cage on the back dock of the kitchen unsupervised, and also allowing the inmate to access the back dock unsupervised on Sundays.
As for William Walker, documents show he failed to report an unsupervised inmate on the back dock, saying Walker observed an individual in what he believed to be a uniform – black in color, unlike standard issue doc blue uniform – pushing a silver cart. The document also says he opened both Sallyport gates, allowing the individual to exit without proper identification or authorization and failed to maintain visual surveillance.
We want to be transparent, we want to be accountable to the citizens of Arkansas and look over things that went wrong that we can make better and changes so that incidents like this don’t happen again in the future,” says DOC spokesperson, Rand Champion.
The terminations mark the first direct disciplinary actions in response to Hardin’s escape.
State officials say more security upgrades are coming and that all corrections staff will be retrained to prevent anything like this from happening again.
The Arkansas Legislative Council’s Charitable and Correctional Institutions Subcommittee will be meeting Thursday to discuss the investigation and review of the security policies and protocols.
“We have questions, I think the general public has questions about what happened with Grant Hardin’s escape. Hopefully on some of that, we’ll get some insight, what the failures were and what corrective measures or actions the Department of Corrections is taking,” says C0-Chair or the committee Representative Howard Beaty.
