Quincy Stephens wanted for felony escape

ALBANY — The Judicial Electronic Monitoring Service alerted the Albany Police Department Sunday to a tampering incident. Officers responding to the 700 block of South Harding Street in search of Quincy Stephens.

Stephens had been on house arrest and required to wear an electronic ankle monitor for probation violation. Officers arrived at Stephens’ last-known location, a house on South Harding Street, and knocked on the door.

Initially, no one answered. After several minutes of knocking, a relative of Stephens’ came to the door and granted officers permission to enter the home and search for him.

According to reports, Stephens was not there, but officers did find his black ankle monitor in his room. Apparently, Stephens had cut the monitor from his leg and escaped.

“Ankle monitors are equipped with a phone that allows the Judicial Electronic Monitoring Service to talk to detainees,” said Dougherty County District Attorney Greg Edwards. “It also has the ability to alert authorities when tampering occurs along with a siren and a GPS (Global Positioning System) that shows the current location of the device.”

In this incident, Stephens had forcibly removed his monitor, which sounded the alarm. He was last seen by a relative Saturday evening around 10 p.m. but is believed to still be in the area.

Warrants charging tampering with electronic monitoring device-house arrest and felony escape have been taken out for Stephens. This case is active and pending arrest.

Anyone with information regarding the location of Stephens is asked to call the Albany police Department at (229) 431-2100 or Crime Stoppers at (229) 436-TIPS (8477).