BRIDGE CITY, La. (AP) - Six youths aged 16 to 18 broke out of a juvenile detention center near New Orleans around midnight Wednesday, injuring a staff member, but five were captured the same day, the state Office of Juvenile Justice said.
Two 18-year-olds, a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old - were caught about nine hours after the escape from the Bridge City Center for Youth, more than 90 miles (145 kilometers) away in Lafayette Parish.
A 17-year-old was found about 4:30 p.m. in Jefferson Parish, where the detention center is located, and another 17-year-old was still missing, a news release said..
Three of the first four arrested were in the city of Lafayette and one elsewhere in the parish, the office’s executive management advisor Elizabeth Touchet-Morgan said in an email.
Although the department’s first news release said one of those being searched for Wednesday was from New Orleans and the other from Jefferson Parish, its afternoon update said only that the missing teen was from the New Orleans area.
Touchet-Morgan said she could not comment on the offenses that sent the six youths to the center, including whether violence was involved, because they are juveniles.
The staffer was treated at a hospital and released.
Bridge City is on the west bank of Jefferson Parish, across the Mississippi River and about two miles (3 kilometers) from New Orleans’ east bank city limits.
State police and at least six local agencies have been involved in the search and arrests.
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