BATON ROUGE, Louisiana — Only two of the ten New Orleans jail escapees are still on the run Tuesday, after police apprehended two men Monday after a high-speed chase in Texas and another man they discovered sitting on a bench in Louisiana thanks to an anonymous tip.
The Associated Press obtained police dashboard and body camera film that appears to show two escapees, Leo Tate, 31, and Jermaine Donald, 42, fleeing from police in a white SUV at speeds of up to 80 mph (129 kph) in Walker County, Texas.
The vehicle sped past police cruisers, performed a U-turn, and drove the opposite way down a divided state highway. The men eventually pulled over and surrendered to officers, who approached the halted vehicle with weapons drawn.
“They just ended up giving it up,” Huntsville Police Lt. Wade Roberts explained. Additional information on the chase, including its duration, was not immediately available.
Back in Louisiana, an anonymous tip from a concerned citizen resulted in the detention of another fugitive. Lenton Vanburen Jr., 26, was caught Monday evening resting on a bench near a department store in Baton Rouge, some 78 miles (125 kilometres) from the jail where he and nine others fled earlier this month, according to authorities.
Authorities also claimed Monday that five persons were arrested for assisting Vanburen in his daring jail escape through a hole beneath a toilet. Three of those individuals have the same surname as Vanburen, including Lenton Vanburen Sr. All five were charged with accessory after the fact, which is a crime that entails harbouring, hiding, or assisting a felon who is avoiding arrest, trial, conviction, or punishment and is punishable by up to five years in jail.
Derrick Groves and Antoine Massey remain at large.
Groves, 27, was found guilty of two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of attempted second-degree murder last year for his role in the 2018 Mardi Gras Day shootings of two men. He is also charged with battery on a correctional facility employee, according to court records.
Massey, 33, has a significant criminal record. In March, he was arrested for motor vehicle theft and domestic violence battery with strangling. According to law enforcement sources, he is also wanted in St. Tammany Parish on accusations of kidnapping and rape.
Authorities have urged the public to phone police if they have any information that could lead to Groves and Massey’s detention, and they are offering a $20,000 reward for tips that lead to their arrest.
The daring New Orleans escape occurred nearly two weeks ago, when convicts ripped open a defective cell door inside a jail, slipped through a hole under a toilet, climbed a barbed-wire fence, and fled into the darkness.
Authorities were not informed of the escape until a morning headcount, hours after the ten guys bolted for freedom. Graffiti with the message “To Easy LoL,” an arrow pointing to the gap where the toilet used to be, was placed on the wall at the crime scene.
Multiple security failures at the jail have been identified by city and state officials.
Conditions in the jail had deteriorated in the months leading up to the escape, with unsupervised inmates smoking marijuana “without fear of consequences” and making weapons out of brooms, mops, and buckets, according to a new report released Tuesday by an independent watchdog monitoring a 2013 federal consent decree intended to reform the facility.
The monitor recommended Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson to re-establish a high-security unit in the jail, citing inmate violence that has rendered the institution “not reasonably safe and secure.” Hutson, a progressive reformer, ended the practice of putting certain offenders in a high-security facility after assuming office in 2022.
“Many of the inmate-on-inmate assaults occur because staff allow inmates out of their cells and leave them unsupervised, or inmates are able to manipulate the locks on their cells to open them,” the monitors said in the report, prepared prior to this month’s escape.
