Police capture teens that assaulted detention guard to escape
Jacksonville FL June 26 2017 Jacksonville police captured three teen inmates Saturday morning – a week after they overpowered a guard to escape from a state youth detention facility on the city’s Northside.
Detectives tracking down leads found all three together in the 7200 block of Old Kings Road South about 10 a.m. and took them into custody, said Officer Melissa Bujeda, a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman.
Luther Franklyn Davis, 16, Derek Marquise Browley, also 16, and Justin A. Silva, 15, were charged with escape and felony battery, then booked into the Duval County jail about 12:30 p.m., Bujeda said.
The three had escaped about 11:30 p.m. June 18 Jacksonville Youth Academy after overpowering a guard. It was the fourth escape in as many months from a state juvenile justice facility in Northeast Florida.
The Sheriff’s Office previously provided the following account of the escape.
Davis asked a guard if he could use the bathroom. Silva called another security guard to the locked door of the room he shared with Browley.
Silva allegedly punched the guard in the mouth as he opened the door to talk to him. Silva and Browley allegedly then grabbed the guard’s keys from the door and ran out of the room as Davis fled from the bathroom.
The guard who had been punched and two others tried to stop the fleeing teens, but the guards’ portable radios fell to the floor during the attempt.
The teens allegedly scooped up the radios and threw them at one guard’s face, hiting him and causing his eye to bleed and swell. The guards grappled with the teenagers. But the teens allegedly used the key to unlock an outside door, then jumped a fence and took off on foot, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Police said another guard had a cut lip resulting from being punched during the escape.
Browley was in Jacksonville’s juvenile facility on three 2017 charges – carjacking and burglary in January, and auto theft in April, the Sheriff’s Office previously said.
Silva’s charges included grand theft and violation of probation. Davis’s include auto burglary, auto theft and burglary, both from other jurisdictions, according to the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.
The Jacksonville Youth Academy is one of 54 facilities for teens under state Department of Juvenile Justice control. Eleven operate in an 18-county Northeast Florida region.
It is listed as a “structured, non-secure treatment program” for up to 24 boys ages 14 to 18 with mental health and behavioral health services, according to the department’s website. The average length of stay is three to nine months for youth ordered there by a judge to complete a substance-abuse program.
The academy is run under state contract by G4S Youth Services, which provides what it calls “resdential-based juvenile services” in Florida, Texas and Tennessee. Formerly a subsidiary of the global security company G4S, the company was sold in April for $56.5 million to BHSB Holdings, a Tampa-based provider of health care services.
G4S also operates the Hastings Youth Academy, which saw three inmate escapes between March and May at the facility just west of Florida 207. All were caught.
Eleven teens were involved in the four escapes, including eight from a St. Johns County detention center. All of the facilities involved are operated by an organization called G4S Youth Services.
After the three escaped from Jacksonville Youth Academy, the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice said in a statement it takes incidents at its programs “very seriously to ensure the safety of both youth and staff.”
“Juvenile Justice will continue to work with law enforcement, as well as conducting our own investigation of this incident, to confirm that all policies and procedures were followed,” the statement said. If policies and procedures were not followed, G4S Youth Services will be held accountable, agency officials said.
Jacksonville.com
