Lake Providence, Louisiana — All eight inmates who escaped from a rural prison were arrested less than 24 hours after they were reported missing, Louisiana authorities said.
Officials have not said how they escaped from the Riverbend Detention Center in Lake Providence, located in East Carroll Parish — a rural area on the border with Arkansas and Mississippi — before they were reported missing at 1:20 a.m. Friday.
They also did not provide details on how each of the men was arrested.
The arrests were announced in three batches from Friday afternoon through early Saturday morning and involved multiple federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, including the police department in Yazoo City, Mississippi, a two-hour drive from the prison.
Neither state police nor the East Carroll Parish Sheriff’s Office immediately returned calls from The Associated Press on Saturday.
The ages of the inmates range from 19 to 31 years. All are considered violent criminals, authorities said. The fugitives are being held on charges including murder, aggravated assault with a firearm and aggravated flight from an officer, court records said.
East Carroll Parish is located in a part of Louisiana that was hit hard by power outages following the disaster Deadly winter storm Which moved across the United States this week. More than a quarter of customers in the parish were still without power as of Saturday morning, according to Poweroutage.us.
Louisiana witnessed a series of daring prison escapes last year.
Last year in Louisiana 10 inmates escaped from a New Orleans prison After crawling through a hole behind the toilet. They were not all arrested until five months later after a search that spanned multiple states.
In December, Three prisoners escaped From a different prison in Louisiana after removing concrete blocks from a deteriorating wall.