Tip leads to recapture of Louisiana inmate after his SECOND escape

A tipster’s phone call led to the capture of an escaped Louisiana inmate on Friday, and it’s not even the first time.

Tra’Von Johnson, a 22-year-old inmate at the Tangipahoa Parish Jail, was taken back into custody just a day after escaping from the facility. This is the second escape that he was able to pull off, with the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office admitting he had pulled the same stunt “a year ago this month.”

“TPSO wants to thank, first and foremost, the community for standing with us in this effort,” the office said, revealing that Louisiana State Police had conducted the arrest.

Johnson was being held at the local jail awaiting trial regarding his alleged role in a botched home invasion that left a man and his child dead. He is additionally being charged with simple escape resulting from his unauthorized excursion, and he has been taken to Angola, where he will continue to await his trial.

Joining in on the escape attempt was inmate Trevon Wallace. Both men were able to slip away unnoticed after a shower flooded in their dorm.

“During the clean-up, while several sections of exterior doors were open to push water out, an interior door was inadvertently opened less than a minute before the error was realized and it was closed again,” the sheriff’s office stated. “In those few seconds, Johnson and Wallace ran out of all of the doors to the yard.”

Surveillance video shows Wallace giving Johnson a boost over the perimeter fence before running back into the jail, where he was intercepted and taken back to his cell. The sheriff’s office said the deputies never reported the door incident or Wallace’s brief taste of freedom, and did not conduct a proper headcount following the commotion.

It took a phone call from an anonymous citizen at 10 p.m., asking if Johnson was still in custody, for the deputies to notice that he was gone.

“At this time, it is not believed this was a planned escape, but rather, an opportunistic one that was compounded by a failure of jail staff to follow protocols put in place as preventative measures for escapes,” the office admitted. “However, the current investigation into this incident does include looking into the person who called the jail and the inmate who caused the flooding to begin with.”

Writer/Columnist

Sierra Marlee is a millennial whose hunger for the truth in a world of fake news has led her to BizPac Review.

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