And Then There Were Two: Banner Memorial Day Weekend For New Orleans as Three More Prison Escapees Were Brought to Justice, Only Derrick Groves & Antoine Massey Remain
A banner Memorial Day weekend for the American justice system. Not one, not two, but THREE prisoners they let walk out of a hole in their cell just over a week ago were apprehended returned to captivity. On top of that, they managed to arrest a whole slew of civilians, including prison employees and multiple relatives of the escaped prisoners, who have been charged with assisting these brave convicts in their quest for freedom. For those keeping track at home, that's 10 escaped prisoners, 8 prisoners returned, and 13 total civilians (I think) who've been arrested in connection to the prison break.
It takes a village. I don't actually believe this next take, but sometimes I think helping escaped prisoners should be fair game. Not for the employees of the prison who literally made the escape possible. That would be unreasonable. But how about the prison/state taking some accountability for letting your prisoners walk out the side of the building. If they're going to be that bad at running a prison, if they're going to put so little money and resources into making their building full of dangerous criminals a secure facility, then you're putting the family and friends of these escaped prisoners who come to them for help in a pretty fucked up position. Imagine one of the escaped prisoners is your brother, or your best friend. Obviously the right thing to do is turn him in. But on one hand you love him. On the other hand you're probably scared of him. If you turn him in, you have a scorned, proven-to-be-violent prisoner who's going to hold a vendetta against you for the rest of your life. I've seen enough movies to know people can still get to you from inside a prison. Again, I know we can't just allow people to help escaped prisoners. But for these people charged with helping them, it's super shitty to be thrown in prison because you made a bad decision in a high stress situation that was only made possible because the prison who took responsibility for keeping that man out of your life dropped the ball so fucking hard.
Anyways... going into the weekend we had 5 remaining prisoners on the run. Antoine Massey, Derrick Groves, Lenton Vanburen, Leo Tate, and Jermaine Donald. Ahead of the weekend, video footage was released of three of the prisoners (Antoine Massey, Lenton Vanburen, Derrick Groves) still in full prison attire, walking swiftly through the empty streets of a New Orleans neighborhood.
That video was really just a terrible look for everyone. Terrible look for the city that a week after the escape, three of the prisoners are still together, not disguising themselves at all, just walking in a group through what looks like a pretty well populated & well lit area of New Orleans, and they still haven't been able to bring them in. And it's an even worse look for the prisoners. Why are they still in New Orleans? How have they not found a change of clothes? I thought that video was embarrassing for everybody involved on both sides of the prison break.
But maybe I was wrong. Because by Monday, Lenton Vanburen had broken off from the group and made his way to Baton Rouge, where an anonymous tip caught Lenton lacking on bench outside of a shopping center.
You gotta be pissed if you're one of the three Vanburen family members arrested for helping Lenton escape. They ruined their lives just so Lenton could have a week of freedom, only to be caught on a public bench sipping a soda pop in broad daylight. Not even 100 miles from the prison in which he escaped. You gotta be better than that Lenton.
And just hours later, two more prisoners were captured. But not the prisoners who were seen with Lenton Vanburen in New Orleans just days earlier. Jermaine Donald and Leo Tate were arrested after leading cops on a high speed chase through Walker County, Texas.
From the jump, Jermaine Donald was my pick for last prisoner caught (or most likely to never be caught). As a Day 1 Jermaine Donaldstan, I can live with the way he went down. He wasn't caught sitting on a fucking bench in Louisiana. Jermaine Donald and Leo Tate at least had the gumption to get out of the state. They managed to elicit the help of a woman with poor judgment who was willing to drive them around to a few locations. They somehow got themselves a car. Jermaine had the wherewithal to cut off his dreads. And when the cops finally caught up to them, they put foot to pedal and drove as fast as they could for as far as they could. They at least had some sort of plan. They went down swinging. I can't be mad about backing that horse.
Which means we're down to the final two. In one corner, we have Derrick Groves. The four-time murderer. The alleged most violent of the Orleans Parish prison escapees. The grandson of Kim Groves, a New Orleans woman who murdered by a crooked cop after she filed a police brutality claim against him in 1994. The actually kind of decent rapper.
In the other corner you have Antoine Massey. The FOUR-TIME prison escapee, who based on context clues, seems to be the prisoner who orchestrated the escape. He's the person who allegedly threatened to stab the maintenance worker at the prison if he didn't turn the water off, which allowed them to escape from the hole behind their cell toilet. His abundance of face tattoos had me thinking he would easy pickings for the authorities. Apparently I was wrong.
Derrick Groves and Antoine Massey have clearly proven themselves to be he most formidable escapees in the competition. Now it's all come down to this. Every murder. Every violent assault. Every prison guard held at knifepoint. Every friend and family member who's lives they've destroyed by making them a party to the escape. It's all come down to this. Who will take home the crown as New Orleans #1 Prison Escapee? (Although based on the surveillance footage from last Thursday, I feel like Derrick Groves and Antoine Massey may still be together. And I hate to put this out in the universe, but based on everything we know about the two, they seem to be the most likely prisoners to go out in a blaze of glory. So here's to a safe resolution for all those involved)
BONUS NEW ORLEANS PRISON ESCAPEE:
Just one more quick update on New Orleans. Did you think the 10 escaped prisoners from the Orleans Parish Justice Center last weekend were the only escaped prisoners New Orleans was dealing with? Well egg on your face. Tra'Von Johnson, yet another prisoner who has escaped prison before, managed to flee a facility just north of New Orleans. Unfortunately for Tra'von, it appears he as caught relatively quickly. Good job New Orleans. You've captured 9 escaped prisoners in a 10 day period. That's gotta be a record.