Last of 10 inmates who escaped from New Orleans jail captured by police | US crime
The last fugitive from a high-profile 10-man prison break in New Orleans in May has been captured, according to authorities.
One announcement On Wednesday, New Orleans district attorney Jason Williams said authorities captured four-time convicted murderer Derrick Groves after a shooting at a home in southwest Atlanta.
“Groves’ escape represented a serious breach of public safety and a historic failure of detention security,” Williams said in a statement. “His capture brought long-awaited peace to the victims, their families, the witnesses who testified, the assistant district attorneys who prosecuted him, and the people of New Orleans who were rightfully concerned that a convicted violent criminal had escaped so easily and evaded justice for so long.”
According to several law enforcement sources, the house where Groves was hiding had been gassed several times. spoke WWL. Additionally, Deputy U.S. Marshal Brian Fair said Groves was “hiding in a crawl space,” adding: “He was apparently the only person in this house and he was pretty well hidden.”
Groves a few months before his escape prisoner In the double murder that occurred in October 2024 during Mardi Gras in 2018. Groves, who had the most violent criminal record of any of the fugitive men, was found guilty of two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of attempted second-degree murder in the case.
He later pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges in connection with the 2017 double murder.
His role in the prison break shed a particularly unwelcome light on New Orleans’ long-troubled criminal justice system. He is the grandson of Kim Groves, who filed a brutality complaint against a New Orleans police officer before the officer hired a hitman to fatally shoot her in 1994 in one of the city’s most notorious murder cases.
Officer Len Davis was eventually sentenced to death. But at the end of his presidency, Joe Biden commuted Davis’ sentence to life in prison, granting clemency to 37 federal death row inmates.
Wednesday’s capture of Groves, the last fugitive to escape from prison, comes nearly five months after he escaped with nine other inmates from custody at the Orleans Parish sheriff’s office on May 16. The largest escape in recent U.S. history occurred after the men broke open a broken cell door inside the prison, climbed through a hole behind a toilet, climbed a barbed wire fence and escaped the facility through a loading dock.
Shortly after the inmates’ escape, photos showed a window-sized hole in the facility’s wall showing handwritten messages that included the phrase “Fuck OPSO,” a reference to the Orleans county sheriff’s office, which runs the jail.
Another message read, “We are innocent.” “Easy hahaha,” read another misspelled post, which used the abbreviation for “laugh out loud.”
As of June 27, nine of those who escaped were recaptured.
Following Groves’ arrest, Williams said: “We will pursue every legal avenue available to ensure that Derrick Groves answers for every crime he committed and every consequence he sought to avoid.”
Meanwhile, Orleans County Sheriff Susan Hutson in question: “Let me be very clear: When someone escapes from our custody, we will not stop until he is found.
“For nearly five months, law enforcement in multiple states worked tirelessly to bring Groves back into custody.”
Hutson thanked Atlanta police, Georgia’s Fulton County sheriff’s office, the U.S. Marshals Service and his agency’s fugitive capture team “for their relentless pursuit and dedication to public safety.”
The sheriff is up for re-election on October 11. New Orleans has a new university questionnaire It showed Huston (13%) trailing significantly behind former New Orleans police department interim chief Michelle Woodfork (43%), who was one of five candidates challenging the incumbent in the primary. If necessary, a second round of elections will be held in November.
