A Gainesville man was taken to the Alachua County Jail after trying to steal a car from the jail’s parking lot, Alachua County Sheriff’s Office said.
Ernest Holmes, 29, was seen leaving a wooded area near the jail at about noon Monday and trying to steal a white Chevy pickup truck, said ACSO spokesperson Art Forgey.
The truck’s owner, an employee of Paws On Parole, which is a program where inmates train and live with adoptable dogs from the Alachua County Animal Services, was working with prisoners to train their dogs with the ACSO detention deputy, when they saw Holmes, Forgey said.
Holmes broke into the truck and was sitting in the driver’s seat when the deputy ordered him to step outside, Forgey said. Holmes said he wanted to take the car to leave the area but didn’t say where he wanted to go, he said.
The deputy found a glass pipe in his front left pants’ pocket and a medicine bottle with yellow pills in his front right pocket with a prescription label made out to another person, Forgey said. Authorities are testing the pills to determine what they are.
Holmes was arrested on charges of possession of a drug without a prescription, possession of drug paraphernalia and attempted grand theft of a motor vehicle. He was driven to the front of the jail where he was booked and he remains, as of press time, in lieu of a $12,000 bond.
Contact Robert Lewis at rlewis@alligator.org. Follow him on Twitter at @Lewis__Robert.
Ernest Holmes
