The two men who escaped from Philly’s jail went unnoticed for 19 hours because a guard was sleeping on the job, DA says

The two men who escaped from a Philadelphia jail earlier this year were aided by a series of institutional shortcomings or blunders, prosecutors said Wednesday, including cell doors that the men were able to manipulate open, a guard who fell asleep on her shift, and external motion sensors that had been turned off because they’d been continually detecting geese landing nearby.

In addition, District Attorney Larry Krasner told City Council during a virtual hearing, a hole in an external fence that the two men crawled through had been cut nearly seven weeks before the escape — and had been noticed by staffers at least four days before the jailbreak.

Still, the hole was apparently not fixed before Ameen Hurst and Nasir Grant crawled through it on May 7. And, in video Krasner played for Council that depicted parts of the escape, Hurst and Grant can be seen opening their cell doors at a time when all prisoners were to have been locked in, casually walking down a hallway, then diving to the ground and crawling through a public space toward a door — all as another prisoner, also out of his cell, acted as a lookout.

One post for a guard on the cellblock was unoccupied at that time, Krasner said, and the only other guard responsible for monitoring the unit was also in charge of simultaneously supervising two other areas. Hours later, when another guard reported for duty on the block, Krasner said, she fell asleep, then did not conduct the prisoner counts she was supposed to, allowing the breakout to go undetected by staff for nearly 19 hours.

“A count is supposed to be a count,” Krasner said. “A count is not supposed to be a nap, followed by falsely asserting a number you never counted.”

The presentation by Krasner offered the most complete accounting yet of how and why Hurst, who was awaiting trial in connection with four murders, and Grant, who was jailed on gun and drug charges, were able to break out of the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center and spend several days on the lam. The unprecedented episode led to a series of embarrassing revelations for the city. Four people have since been charged with helping Grant and Hurst once they got out.

Still, the DA’s testimony did not answer every question about the breakout, and he did not announce any new arrests, saying his office’s investigation was ongoing. The people charged with assisting Grant or Hurst were not Prisons Department employees.

Prisons Commissioner Blanche Carney told Council on Wednesday that her department has made executive leadership changes as it continues to investigate what happened. But a department spokesperson declined to offer specifics, and said he could not comment on whether the employee Krasner said had been sleeping was disciplined.

Beyond the new details of the escape, the hearing highlighted existing problems at the city’s jails, where more than 4,500 people are housed — including an ongoing staffing shortage, a decades-old video surveillance system that is difficult to use and not monitored in real time, and the external motion sensors that were not functioning.

“Once we started peeling the layers of the onion, it went deep,” said Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr., who credited his Council colleague Sharon Vaughn with opening the inquiry, which was initially designed to look primarily at the escape itself.

The city’s jails were already subject to the oversight of a monitor appointed by a federal judge last year, in response to a class-action lawsuit over conditions there.

Following the escape, Carney also asked the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to conduct a security assessment. She said Wednesday that the jails had installed additional razor wire; removed the non-functioning motion sensors; were hoping to upgrade other pieces of infrastructure, such as the video system; and were aiming to install new technology, such as armbands that can offer real-time location information on incarcerated people.

Still, troubling episodes have continued. On Tuesday evening, a group of 12 prisoners at Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility approached a guard and “attempted to take him hostage,” said John Mitchell, a Prisons Department spokesperson. The guard escaped unharmed, but the prisoners took his pepper spray, keys, and radio, and, when backup officers responded, they had to break through doors that the prisoners had secured shut with bedding, Mitchell said. It took about an hour to secure the unit.

David Robinson, president of the correctional officers’ union, Local 159 of AFSCME DC 33, said the officer who was targeted Tuesday was working alone on the unit — a symptom, he said, of inadequate staffing that he said has repeatedly created dangerous situations.

”Just last week, an officer’s teeth were knocked in [during an assault by an incarcerated person]. He has to go through surgery. And now I have an officer who could have been taken hostage yesterday,” Robinson said.

Krasner said he could not publicly disclose all of the details his office has learned about the jail escape, telling Council members he would show them more extensive footage and evidence in private. Still, the details offered by Krasner, and by Assistant District Attorney Brett Zakeosian, provided a fuller picture of what happened.

The episode began the night of May 7, after prisoners were supposed to have been locked in their cells for the night. Video that prosecutors played showed that wasn’t the case: A man, whom they identified as Jose Alberto Flores-Huerta, can be seen wandering around in an empty common area. Flores-Huerta was jailed while awaiting trial after being accused of participating in a fatal beating outside Pat’s King of Steaks in 2021.

A guard post on the floor was unoccupied, Krasner said, and he said Flores-Huerta was keeping an eye on the only corrections officer overseeing the unit, who at the time was off the floor and behind a set of windows.

The video then showed Grant and Hurst getting out of their cells (Krasner said prosecutors had deliberately withheld footage showing how they manipulated the doors). The pair then walked toward Flores-Huerta, got down on the ground, crawled through a door and into the jail yard, then sprinted toward the hole in the fence.

That hole had been cut seven weeks earlier, Krasner said, though he did not say by whom. Video from four days before the escape also showed guards “looking at [the hole], pointing at it,” the DA said, but it was not fixed.

It took Grant and Hurst just 90 seconds to make their way from their cells, through the yard, and toward another set of external fences, Krasner said.

Still, their escape was not over. It took the pair another half-hour to climb over two additional perimeter fences lined with barbed wire. That’s where the motion sensors were, Krasner said — but the devices hadn’t been functioning for more than a decade because geese had been routinely triggering the alarm.

“When the [geese] landed ... they’re setting off the sensors, and when they were setting off the sensors, eventually someone decided to turn them off,” Krasner said.

In fact, Krasner said, Grant and Hurst ended up using the sensors, which resemble large poles, to climb over the fence. They also laid a piece of clothing down atop the barbed wire while climbing out.

The pair then made their way to freedom — aided, prosecutors have said, by at least four people since charged as coconspirators. A 21-year-old woman, prosecutors said, ordered Grant and Hurst an Uber to get from near the jail to North Philadelphia, and a 21-year-old man then met up with Hurst before Hurst went on the run.

Grant and Hurst were apprehended separately: Grant on May 11 in North Philadelphia, where he was disguised in women’s clothing, and Hurst on May 17 in West Philadelphia. Each was charged with an additional count of escape. That case remains pending in court.

Krasner did not say when, or whether, he expects anyone else to be charged in the case. But he said the ongoing issues at the jails — including other crimes his office has charged, such as a guard allegedly taking bribes from a prisoner — showed the need for city agencies to work together to address the systemic issues in the facilities.

“Call it negligence, call it malfeasance, call it whatever you want,” he said. “We are here to talk about a problem.”

Staff writer Samantha Melamed contributed to this article.