The final of 10 inmates who escaped from the Orleans Parish Justice Middle in Might was captured on Wednesday in southwest Atlanta after a short standoff, based on the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Workplace.
Derrick Groves’ arrest marks the top of a months-long, multi-agency manhunt that started after he and 9 different inmates escaped from the Orleans Parish facility on Might 16, 2025.
Groves was taken into custody at a house on Honeysuckle Lane following a coordinated operation involving Crimestoppers Better New Orleans, the U.S. Marshals Service, the FBI, Homeland Safety Investigations, Louisiana State Police, the New Orleans Police Division, the Atlanta Police Division, and different companies.
Officers with the U.S. Marshals Workplace in Louisiana advised CBS Information’ Nicole Sganga that they’d obtained a tip via Crime Stoppers that pointed them to metro Atlanta. The nonprofit group obtained a number of hundred recommendations on Groves over the previous months, and so they have been all vetted, President of Crime Stoppers of the Better New Orleans space Darlene Cusanza mentioned at a information convention Wednesday.
After a SWAT workforce deployed a lot of gasoline canisters, regulation enforcement companies discovered Groves within the crawl area of the house, a spokesperson for the Atlanta Police Division mentioned. He was the one one within the dwelling on the time and was taken into custody with out incident.
In video supplied by the Atlanta Police Division, Groves is seen smiling and blowing a kiss as officers put him behind a patrol automobile.
“I suppose they’re taking me to jail,” Groves mentioned throughout his arrest, the Atlanta Police Division confirmed.
Courtesy of the Atlanta Police Division
Investigators haven’t mentioned how lengthy Groves has been on the dwelling or his relationship with the proprietor of the property. Authorities are working to find out how he bought to Atlanta after his escape.
Data from the Fulton County Jail present that Groves was booked on fugitive from justice prices on Wednesday. He’s anticipated to be extradited to Louisiana at a later date.
Louisiana officers react to Derrick Groves’ arrest
“Groves’ escape represented a critical breach of public security and a historic failure of custodial safety. His seize brings long-awaited calm to victims, their households, the witnesses who testified, the assistant district attorneys who prosecuted him, and the individuals of New Orleans who have been rightly involved {that a} convicted violent offender had escaped so simply and evaded justice for thus lengthy,” New Orleans District Legal professional Jason Rogers Williams mentioned in a press release. “We are going to pursue each accessible authorized avenue to make sure that Derrick Groves solutions for each crime he has dedicated and each consequence he has sought to keep away from.”
Williams added that the collaboration amongst native, state, and federal authorities was key to finding Groves and safely bringing him into custody.
At a information convention on Wednesday evening, Louisiana Legal professional Basic Liz Murrill mentioned Groves is anticipated to be prosecuted for the jailbreak in Georgia, and presumably by federal prosecutors. Groves was anticipated to be sentenced to life in jail for his earlier convictions and he’ll seemingly face further time.
“This has been extraordinary taxing,” Murrill mentioned. “It has been costly. It has been scary for lots of people, for workers on the DA’s workplace, for victims and witnesses who may need been concerned or have implicated Derrick Groves.”
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New Orleans jailbreak
On Might 16, Groves and 9 different males broke out of the Orleans Justice Middle by fleeing via a gap behind a rest room, prompting an elaborate nationwide manhunt. Inside 24 hours, three escapees have been tracked down and captured by regulation enforcement, whereas a number of others have been taken again into custody inside a couple of weeks.
In July, Dkenan Dennis, Gary Value, Robert Moody, Kendell Myles, Corey Boyd, Lenton VanBuren, Jermaine Donald, Antoine Massey, and Leo Tate pleaded not responsible to prices of straightforward escape.
Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson advised CBS Information in an unique interview earlier this yr that jail staffing and design flaws performed a significant position within the breakout.
Sheriff Hutson mentioned the Orleans Parish Justice Middle jail, inbuilt 2015, was poorly constructed from the beginning.
“There are main design flaws in it that make it unsafe for many who are housed right here and make it unsafe for many who work right here,” Hutson mentioned. “And I included the locks and different mechanisms that I do not need to discuss on digicam which can be issues of safety. However we talked about this, and we alerted all people within the system.”
Darriana Burton, a former worker on the jail who allegedly was concerned in a relationship with Groves throughout his incarceration, is accused of serving to him coordinate the escape. Authorities imagine Burton organized telephone calls that prevented the jail’s monitoring system. She is one in all at the very least 16 individuals, together with many relations of the escapees, who’re dealing with prices for offering transport, meals, shelter, and money to the fugitives.
Who’s Derrick Groves?
In response to courtroom information, Groves, who goes by “Woo,” dropped out of college in ninth grade and offered heroin in New Orleans’ Decrease Ninth Ward for years. The FBI started monitoring his social media whereas he was nonetheless a youngster, and Groves pleaded responsible to federal drug trafficking prices in 2019.
Groves has been in jail since at the very least 2019, after his involvement in 4 killings over 18 months.
In October 2024, a jury convicted Groves of second-degree homicide for utilizing an assault rifle to fireside dozens of bullets right into a household block get together on Mardi Gras.
Byron Jackson, 21, and 26-year-old Jamar Robinson have been killed, and several other others have been wounded. He faces life imprisonment with out parole, however administrative delays have saved him in jail for years as a substitute of a safer jail facility.
Groves later pleaded responsible to manslaughter prices in two separate shootings, based on the Orleans Parish District Legal professional’s workplace. He was scheduled to be sentenced in December 2024 however a decide within the case recused herself, and Groves nonetheless had not been sentenced when he escaped, based on Murrill.
In a follow-up assertion Wednesday evening, Murrill referred to as Groves “essentially the most violent of all of the inmates who escaped the Orleans Justice Middle again in Might, with at the very least 4 our bodies to his title. He’ll spend the remainder of his life within the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Anybody who could have helped him can even be arrested and prosecuted. Lots of people will sleep a lot better tonight realizing this convicted assassin is lastly again in custody.”
