Philly DA Larry Krasner: Expect answers on last month’s jail escape within 90 days

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said Tuesday that his office should be able to reveal new details within three months about how two men were able to escape from a city jail earlier this spring, providing a timeline for when a criminal investigation might shed more light on the incident, which for weeks has remained shrouded in a degree of mystery.

Speaking to City Council members during a committee hearing called to address the jailbreak, which happened last month, Krasner said his office could not yet reveal much about the probe because prosecutors are still gathering evidence. And he did not say who, if anyone, might face charges in connection with the episode, during which the two prisoners — one awaiting trial for four murders — broke out through a hole in an outdoor fence.

Still, without being prompted, Krasner appeared to allude to the possibility that the prisoners may have had some form of assistance from staffers, saying: “When there are individuals, if there are individuals, who betray the public trust, disgrace their uniforms, and violate their oaths, then those individuals must be accountable.”

Krasner did not elaborate on that sentiment, but told Councilmembers Curtis Jones Jr. and Sharon Vaughn: “I think in 90 days we will be able to tell you almost everything, if not everything. We will have video, we will have photographs, we will have expert opinions, we will have audio recordings, and we will have interviews that will shed light on what’s going on here.”

The disclosure by the DA provided the newest information about the unprecedented incident, which made national news and led to a series of embarrassing revelations for the city. Although the escape occurred May 7, prison officials said they didn’t notice it for nearly 19 hours. Authorities then spent days searching several states for the two men — Nasir Grant, 24, who was jailed on gun and drug charges, and Ameen Hurst, 18, the man accused of four murders. Both were apprehended within 10 days in Philadelphia, and four other people were quickly charged with helping them, including a fellow prisoner and three people outside the jail who allegedly helped coordinate various aspects of their time on the lam.

» READ MORE: The second man who escaped from a Philadelphia jail last week was captured Wednesday morning, police say

A host of questions have remained unanswered in the weeks since, including how Grant and Hurst were able to get out of their cells and into the yard, when the hole in the chain-link fence may have been cut and by whom, and how their disappearance went unnoticed for so long — particularly because prison officials said that in the hours after Grant and Hurst broke free, guards conducted three headcounts on the unit that housed them.

Prisons Commissioner Blanche Carney declined during Tuesday’s hearing to address questions about how or if those counts were botched. She also demurred, citing the ongoing investigation, when asked whether the men were assisted from the inside or how long it took them to get out.

She did say that an external alarm “did not activate,” but she did not elaborate on why. And she acknowledged that staffing levels at the facilities are nearly 40% below their target — leading to long shifts for guards, low morale, and sometimes dangerous conditions.

“Simply put: we need staff,” she said, saying the staffing shortages had grown more acute during the pandemic, and that the department has begun offering higher salaries, bonuses, and different schedules to attract more workers.

David Robinson, president of the correctional officers’ union — which has been fiercely critical of Carney — told Council members on Tuesday that the jails are also awash in contraband, and that staffing levels are so low, “We have unmanned units every day.”

Prisoners, advocates, and union officials had raised similar warnings for nearly two years, describing what they viewed as a growing crisis at the city’s jails, where nearly 4,400 people are held. During that time, prosecutors also raised troubling allegations of wrongdoing by filing criminal cases. The District Attorney’s Office last fall charged a correctional officer with taking more than $23,000 in bribes in return for helping an incarcerated man run a criminal enterprise out of the jails. And a year before that, federal authorities charged a corrections officer with sneaking $70,000 worth of cell phones and drugs into the institutions.

Hurst, meanwhile, was accused of committing one of the four homicides with which he is charged near the front gates of one of the jails: the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility. In 2021, police say, he fatally shot 20-year-old Rodney Hargrove an hour after Hargrove had been released from the facility and was waiting outside for relatives to pick him up — a crime that authorities now believe was a case of mistaken identity.

Krasner on Tuesday called that crime “shocking.” And he said that, in combination with other allegations of violence filed against Hurst, made him someone who never should have been able to escape undetected.

“If we were to make a Mount Rushmore of the most dangerous people in the Philadelphia Department of Prisons,” Krasner said, “Ameen Hurst’s face would’ve been there.”

He and Grant were apprehended separately: Grant on May 11 in North Philadelphia, Hurst on May 17 in West Philadelphia. Each was charged with an additional count of escape after being .

Authorities also charged four others with various crimes for allegedly aiding in the breakout: A 21-year-old woman who is accused of speaking to Hurst about the escape on recorded jail phone calls hours before it happened; a 35-year-old prisoner who served as a lookout; a 21-year-old man who allegedly conspired with Hurst afterward, as he was on the run; and Hurst’s 24-year-old brother, who police said was in the car with Hurst when he was by U.S. Marshals.