The former middle school principal of a convicted killer on the run after a Louisiana escape this month has given a savage seven-word response to the jailbreak.
In the early morning hours of May 16, 10 inmates broke out of the Orleans Justice Center by derailing a cell door, pulling a toilet off its mounting and squeezing through an opening in the wall, according to authorities. Police have captured most of the escapees, but two are still on the run: Derrick Groves and Antoine Massey.
Jared Lamb, a Louisiana principal and internet personality, revealed in a video posted to social media on Tuesday that Groves was a former student.
“And I never lost track of him,” Lamb said.
The video shows Lamb walking through the halls of a school and smiling as the song Sunshine, Lollipops And Rainbows by Lesley Gore plays in the background.
Lamb said text of the video: “When the internet thinks you’re some bougie private school principal. But Derrick Groves was your former student.”
He then puts an asterisk and writes: “The most wanted of the New Orleans prison escapees,” to clarify who he was talking about.
The principal captioned the video: “Where yat, Derrick?”
Groves, 27, was convicted over the manslaughter of two men during Mardi Gras in 2018. He was awaiting life sentences when he escaped.
When one commenter on Instagram asked if Lamb’s video was based on a true story, he said: “Yes. I was Derrick’s middle school principal.”
Lamb is currently the principal of a public charter school in Baton Rouge which teaches grades K-10. He has been leading the school since 2022 and is known on the internet for trading in his principal’s office for a rolling cart so he can better interact with the students and better help the teachers.
Lamb’s video has received more than 360,000 likes on TikTok.
The two remaining escapees have been on the run for 12 days after authorities say they managed to climb through a hole in a cell wall, get into the jail’s supply loading bay, use blankets to scale another wall and run across a highway to flee into the New Orleans area.
“A review of the physical security infrastructure revealed signs of tampering,” the sheriff’s office told The Independent.
“Prior to the escape, steel bars protecting plumbing fixtures were intact,” the office said. “After the escape, at least one steel bar appeared to have been intentionally cut using a tool, compromising the integrity of the pod’s security features.”
A jail maintenance worker and three other non-employees have been arrested as police say they helped the inmates escape.
The maintenance worker, Sterling Williams, 33, claimed that one of the escapees threatened to “shank” him if he didn’t aid in their escape, according to an arrest warrant obtained by NOLA.com.
Additionally, three Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office employees have been suspended without pay in connection with the investigation into the jailbreak.
