ATLANTA — A city of Atlanta Public Works employee will soon be trading his work uniform for a jail suit.Atlanta police arrested Claude Brooks on charges of public urination last Friday.
When police ran Brooks’ fingerprints, they matched those of a man already in the database under the name of Edward Nathan.
Nathan had escaped from a Tampa work release detail in 1983 and hadn’t been seen since.Police in Florida said the fingerprints have solved the 27-year-old mystery.Brooks was released from jail in Atlanta before his fingerprints had been submitted to the national database because his offense was a civil infraction.
“Once the fingerprints were identified by the Department of Corrections fugitive unit, they quickly reached out to their law enforcement partners in Georgia,” a Florida representative stated in a news release.Channel 2 Action News reporter Ryan Young went to Brooks’ northwest Atlanta home.
A neighbor said it was quite a scene when U.S. marshals showed up this week.A spokeswoman for the city of Atlanta e-mailed Young a statement about the incident.”The Department of Public Works is aware of the arrest of an Environmental Services Worker. Mr. Claude Brooks is currently on administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation.
The outcome of this investigation may include penalties up to and including dismissal which may be subject to Civil Service review,” public relations manager Valerie Bell-Smith wrote.Police said Brooks was serving a five-year sentence for robbery with a deadly weapon when he escaped.
