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

The second of two men who escaped from a city jail last week was captured in West Philadelphia on Wednesday morning, police said, ending a 10-day search spanning three states for a murder defendant whose unprecedented breakout made national news and became a major concern for law enforcement.

Ameen Hurst, 18, accused of committing four homicides as well as other crimes, was arrested by U.S. Marshals on the 6100 block of Washington Avenue, officials said at a news conference at City Hall.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Robert Clark said agents had been running down tips across Pennsylvania, Delaware and New York in their search, and that on Tuesday, one of Hurst’s relatives got in touch with law enforcement to negotiate a surrender. But Hurst did not turn himself in on three separate occasions over the next 18 hours, Clark said, leading Marshals to set up surveillance early Wednesday morning at locations where they thought Hurst might be.

» READ MORE: First of the two men who escaped from a Philly jail was arrested Thursday night, authorities say

Around 8:30 a.m., Clark said, agents saw Hurst getting into a car on Washington Avenue with several other people. Agents then stopped the car, saw Hurst, and arrested him without incident, Clark said.

“We had three deadlines and were in constant communication, and [Hurst] significantly missed those deadlines,” Clark told reporters earlier, shortly after Hurst was caught. “At some point we had to say, ‘Let’s put our guys back out on the street.’ Because we think we had a chance to end this this morning.”

One of the other people in the car was Hurst’s brother, Amir Woods.

Woods was taken into custody Wednesday and charged with escape, criminal conspiracy, hindering apprehension, and related crimes, police said.

“We are very pleased that these escapees and their conspirators have been arrested without incident,” said Assistant District Attorney Lyandra Retacco.

Hurst’s arrest came as something of a relief for authorities after a series of embarrassing revelations over the past week and a half about his ability to escape from the jails undetected. He and Nasir Grant, 24 — who was jailed on gun and drug charges — broke out of the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center on May 7 through a hole in a chain link fence, authorities said, but their disappearance was not noticed by correctional officers for nearly 19 hours.

Authorities then initiated a search for the two men and also launched an investigation into how the breakout happened and why it went undetected for so long. Retacco and Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said that investigation remained ongoing.

The escape followed more than two years of warnings by prisoners, advocates and union officials of a growing crisis at the city’s jails, where nearly 4,400 people are held. Earlier this month, the correctional officers’ union announced a vote of no confidence in the leadership of Prisons Commissioner Blanche Carney, saying the prisons are about 40% short of a full staffing complement, posing a public safety crisis.

Carney, meanwhile, has raised concerns with other city officials for months about the flow of drugs, phones, tools, and other contraband into the jails. The facilities 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.

Grant was captured in North Philadelphia last week after U.S. Marshals say they received information about where he was staying, then saw him getting into a car while disguised in women’s clothing. He was charged with an additional count of escape and taken to Bucks County jail on $10 million bail, court records show.

Police have also charged three others with aiding in the breakout: A 21-year-old woman who allegedly spoke to Hurst about the escape on recorded jail phone calls hours before it happened, a 35-year-old prisoner who served as a lookout, and a 21-year-old man who allegedly conspired with Hurst afterward, as Hurst was on the run.

Charging documents filed in those cases provide some additional clues about how the escape unfolded, although not a complete picture. Authorities are continuing to investigate whether the escape was actively assisted by any employees, for example, or if it instead was enabled by ongoing staffing shortages that have plagued the jails for years.

An initial act of importance happened around 5:15 p.m. on May 7, charging documents say, when Hurst called the 21-year-old woman, Xianni Stallings, to make arrangements for where he should be picked up later that night. During the calls, the documents say, Stallings connected Hurst with a man who discussed picking him up “at the bridge behind” the jail.

Hours after that, the documents say, the prisoner serving as the lookout — Jose Alberto Flores-Huerta, incarcerated for allegedly participating in a fatal beating outside Pat’s King of Steaks in 2021 — checked the block where he, Hurst, and Grant were all housed, called the “H” unit, for guards. Hurst and Grant crawled toward the shower area, the documents say, and Flores-Huerta gave them a signal when the coast was clear.

Hurst and Grant were then able to get into the prison yard, authorities said, and sneaked through a hole in a chain-link fence before climbing over two other fences lined with barbed wire. Once the men left the prison grounds, charging documents say, they got into an Uber linked to Stallings’ account and were driven to North Philadelphia.

During the Uber ride, the documents say, Hurst called 21-year-old Michael Abrams, and authorities believe the two men — allegedly part of a violent street group in West Philadelphia known as 616 — eventually met up and went on the lam.

Over the next several days, police arrested Stallings and Flores-Huerta, and both were charged with crimes including escape. While Stallings was in jail, court documents say, she made calls to friends on recorded phone lines, asking them to tell Abrams and Hurst not to do anything wrong because she might be charged for it.

Abrams was arrested Monday by U.S. Marshals at a hotel in Berwyn, police said, and he was charged with counts including escape and hindering apprehension. Bail was set at $1 million.

A day after Abrams’ arrest, Hurst’s relatives got in touch with authorities. He was in custody by Wednesday morning.

Beyond the escape, Hurst is accused of killing four people and critically injuring two others in three separate shootings in less than three months. One of those homicides occurred near the front gates of another city jail: the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility. In March 2021, police say, Hurst killed 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.

Authorities now believe the shooting was a case of mistaken identity. In an affidavit of probable cause for Hurst’s arrest in that case, prosecutors said that while he was facing charges for an earlier murder, he essentially confessed to shooting Hargrove while talking to a relative on a recorded phone line.

“I thought that was Sid, we got the wrong [person] though,” Hurst said, according to court documents.

Hurst is also accused of killing 20-year-old Dyewou Nyshawn Scruggs on Christmas Eve in 2020. Scruggs was walking and filming himself on Instagram Live when Hurst ran up and shot him multiple times, police say.

And Hurst is accused of shooting four men sitting in a car on the 1400 block of North 76th Street in March 2021 — a crime police believe was tied to an ongoing feud between neighborhood groups. Naquan Smith, 24, and Tamir Brown, 17 were killed, and two others were seriously wounded.

Clark, of the U.S. Marshals, said the agency received “dozens of tips that we had to triage, and [spent] hundreds of man hours” during its search for Hurst.

Retacco, of the District Attorney’s Office, said although the search for Hurst was over, police, prosecutors and city officials were only at the beginning of an investigation into what happened.

“We need to be able to figure out how this kind of thing could happen ... so that we can ensure the prisons and the community are safe,” she said. “We need to be able to address the whole issue.”