Who's guarding the prisoners? Officers appear to just watch as inmate escapes car
Security camera video obtained exclusively by WWL Louisiana shows the moment Curtis Tassin bolted from the officers.
Based on two bold escapes from state juvenile detention centers, Curtis Tassin had been dubbed the Houdini of juvenile inmates by corrections officials.
But when the teenager fled a third time last May, escaping from two state probation officers, the actions – or lack of action – by those officers has raised serious alarms.
WWL Louisiana was there May 31 shortly after Tassin, then 17, escaped during a prisoner transfer at the city's Juvenile Justice Intervention Center in the St. Bernard neighborhood. A woman saw him discard his restraint belt in a neighbor's yard.
“Saw him chuck like this big leather belt,” the woman said.
It was a WWL Louisiana news crew that found the handcuffs that were supposed to be secured to the belt and around Tassin's wrists.
The discarded restraints that marked the trail of Tassin’s escape would have been just as easy to find by the two officers transporting him.
But based on security camera video obtained exclusively by WWL Louisiana, those officers made no attempt to track Tassin as he bolted the moment one of the officers opened the door of the transport car. In fact, the video shows the officers barely even looking in Tassin’s direction.
'A cascade of breakdowns'
Marlon Defillo, whose 30-year career at the New Orleans Police Department included time as assistant chief over internal affairs, reviewed the video and offered his expert analysis.
Defillo said the officers’ first failure was not checking on Tassin at regular intervals during the roughly three-hour drive from the juvenile lockup in St. Martinville. It was during that stretch that, presumably, Tassin slipped out of his handcuffs, although it is not known if the two officers made the entire drive or just part of it.
“At what point in time did he remove the handcuffs while in the back seat of a secured vehicle?” Defillo asked.
Defillo did a double-take as he watched the lack of any response by the officers as Tassin broke into a full sprint into the neighborhood.
“I'm looking at these two correctional officers who, for the life of me, look like it's no big deal,” he said. “And that's a problem.”
By the time of that escape, Tassin had been in and out of juvenile lockup for years accused of violent crimes, including armed robbery. Not only that, he had earned his escape artist reputation for two previous escapes, including one a year earlier from Bridge City Center for Youth on the West Bank.
Defillo said Tassin's history should have heightened security during the drive from the Acadiana lockup.
“Every three to five minutes, the correctional officer should have eyes on the inmate,” Defillo said. “Every three to five minutes. Not every hour. Not every two hours.”
Looking closely at several security video angles of the escape, Defillo said the officers failed to employ proper procedures at nearly every stage of the transfer.
“It's a cascade of breakdowns in how they handled this entire transporting process,” he said.
Tassin slipping out of his handcuffs might not have mattered if the officers had parked in the secure sally port directly connected to the JJIC instead of in an unsecured parking lot about 30 feet away.
One security camera angle shows Tassin as he disappears directly into the nearby neighborhood. In a third video, the officers are seen finally delivering a second prisoner. Only then were JJIC officials notified of the escape, and they were the ones who called the NOPD.
By then, Tassin was long gone.
“All of this could have been prevented had they driven the vehicle into the sallyport and secured the door of the sallyport,” Defillo said. “There was a breakdown at all levels.”
WWL Louisiana tried to get answers from OJJ and its New Orleans probation and parole regional office, where the officers were assigned.
We asked about any investigation of the escape and the status of the two officers.
The only response was a blanket refusal to provide information based on a public records law exemption when “the records pertain to criminal litigation” or “anticipated litigation.”
OJJ did not disclose any such litigation.
'A matter of life or death'
State Senator Pat Connick of Marrero reviewed our findings. He's been trying to get answers from OJJ for years, going back to Tassin's 2022 escape from Bridge City in his district. Tassin was on the lam for more than a month before he was captured in Opelousas following that violent breakout.
“This needs to be known by everyone in the juvenile justice system from the governor on down,” Connick said. “OJJ has some questions to answer.”
Connick’s first reaction to the video was directed at the officers.
“Are they both still working?” he asked.
“To me, these folks need to be charged,” he said. “Let them defend their actions. It's indefensible what the video shows.”
Connick said his concerns about this juvenile escape and a string of others led him to draft legislation to tighten notification procedures by OJJ when there is an escape, including instant notification of local law enforcement and the media.
He hopes to introduce the bill at the upcoming special legislative session on crime. That session is expected to start shortly after Mardi Gras.
“We're going to change the law to make it as soon as there's an escape, everybody's notified, including the media,” Connick said.
Connick will have some strong allies, including New Orleans District Attorney Jason Williams.
Williams had strong words after two other recent escapes in which juveniles simply walked away from unsecured facilities, but OJJ didn't notify his office, the victims involved in those cases, or the public.
“It is vital that the information about an escapee be placed in the public sphere as soon as possible, in the moments, in the minutes they realize this person is not in his cell, is not in his bed, they need to make sure the public is aware,” Williams said after the second walk-away escape in which his office was kept in the dark.
Connick noted that more stringent training and policies could be a matter of life or death.
“People are getting hurt because of this,” he said. “Seriously life-altering events because of these juveniles.”
Since Tassin's escape, he has been transferred to adult court for trial in one of his armed robbery cases, a carjacking in which New Orleans police say he threatened the victim saying “Give me the keys or I'll blow your head off,” according to a police report.
Tassin was captured within 48 hours of that May escape. On Jan. 24, his mother Keonine Rogers, 32, was formally charged with being an accessory to the escape.