Deputies at the Okaloosa County Jail in Florida found a loaded .38 revolver hidden inside a jail cell. At first officials weren't sure how the gun wound up inside the jail, but an investigation has found that two arresting deputies failed to properly search the body of a suspect when he was booked and arrested. You see, he was hiding the loaded gun under his big belly.
Before placing him into the cell two deputies, Dennis Campbell and Robert Speakman, gave him the old pat down. Speakerman made the arrest, and Campbell was supposed to do a further search before booking him.
Video footage of the arrest showed that neither did a proper search of Mathis' waistband. The 230 pound, 5'4 Mathis had indeed tucked the gun into his waistband and was hiding it underneath what one of the deputies terms his "big gut."
Surveillance footage of Mathis once inside the cell showed him taking the gun out from his waistband. He eventually hid it inside a role of toilet paper, and left it behind when he released the next day.
