It took six weeks, a national manhunt, and over a dozen arrests, but the ninth of ten escapees from the Orleans Justice Center is finally back in custody.
Antoine Massey, a 32-year-old with a long rap sheet and a habit of slipping through jail bars like a magician, was captured by U.S. Marshals in the Hollygrove neighborhood of New Orleans after a Crime Stoppers tip.
Good news? Sure. Though it’s fair to wonder why someone with a history of armed robbery, domestic abuse, and multiple escapes was ever in a position to bust out in the first place.
Massey wasn’t some misunderstood man down on his luck. This is a guy with charges ranging from strangulation to vehicle theft, parole violations, and suspected rape and kidnapping.
His criminal history stretches back to age 15. He’s not new to the system. And frankly, the system hasn’t done a great job at rehabilitating him.
Back in May, Massey and nine others pulled off a jailbreak that looked more like a scene from a B-movie than real life.
They tampered with cell doors, yanked a toilet out of the wall, and slithered through a plumbing chase before scaling fences draped in barbed wire.
Before leaving, they scrawled “To Easy LOL” on the wall, just in case the facility’s security team needed salt in the wound.
The manhunt that followed involved federal, state, and local law enforcement.
Massey made a show of it too, posting videos on Instagram claiming innocence, shouting out celebrities, and generally behaving like a man far too confident in his ability to disappear.
He mocked law enforcement openly, smiling in kitchens and cars while they scrambled to find him. One of his videos even led to a SWAT raid, though by the time officers arrived, he was already gone.
Turns out, even escape artists have to sleep somewhere. Thanks to an anonymous tip, marshals tracked him down and hauled him off to Angola, where escape is less of a hobby.
This story is the result of a breakdown – of security, of justice, and of the cultural backbone that ought to hold people accountable.
Massey didn’t act alone. Authorities say his girlfriend, his sister, and several others helped him evade capture.
Some provided shelter. Others lied to police. One even allegedly deleted evidence from her phone.
Sounds like evidence of a deeper issue: a culture that sympathizes with offenders instead of their victims.
We also have to talk about jail security.
A group of inmates outsmarting an entire correctional facility is a failure, plain and simple.
When the people we trust to detain violent offenders can’t do so, it’s time to reassess budgets, leadership, and priorities.
We don’t need excuses. We need working locks and serious consequences.
Massey’s recapture is a win for law enforcement.
It’s also a case study in what happens when accountability slips, when cultural decency erodes, and when we treat criminal behavior like something to manage instead of confront.
Derrick Groves, the tenth escapee, remains at large. Here’s hoping he’s next.
