November 02, 2023
STREET VIEW/GOOGLE MAPS
Nasir Grant and Ameen Hurst escaped by the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center in Holmesburg, above, in May by slipping through a known hole in an exterior fence while a guard slept on the job, District Attorney Larry Krasner says.
The two men who escaped from the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center in May did so by slipping through a hole in the jail yard fence while guards were absent or asleep on the job, according to newly-revealed surveillance video.
The footage, shared Wednesday by District Attorney Larry Krasner at a City Council meeting, shows Nasir Grant and Ameen Hurst stepping out of their cells, strolling down a hallway and then crawling through a doorway into the jail yard. There, they escaped the Holmesburg facility through a hole in the fence that correctional officials knew about for weeks, Krasner said.
"There's video of them pointing at it, staring at it, indicating an awareness of what had happened with this piece of fence," Krasner said during the meeting, KYW reported.
Krasner's presentation revealed several other security failures that allowed the jailbreak to happen. Motion sensors that should have triggered an alarm had been turned off for several years, Krasner said. One correctional officer walked away and left the area unattended for several hours, while another guard was sleeping on the job, he said.
It took 18 hours – and three inmate head counts – for officials to realize that Grant and Hurst had escaped. It then took law enforcement 10 days to track down and apprehend the men.
Hurst, 19, had been charged with multiple counts of murder; Grant was being held in the facility on drug and weapons charges.
The jailbreak occurred about three months before convicted killer Danelo Cavalcante escaped from Chester County Prison, sparking a massive two-week manhunt.
Cavalcante escaped Aug. 31 by scaling a wall in an outdoor prison yard and escaping through razor wire on the roof. He had been left unsupervised by correctional officers in the yard.
Cavalcante escaped despite prison officials knowing he was an escape risk. After an intensive manhunt, he was captured and taken back into custody on Sept. 13.
