Post date: Aug 13, 2013 6:43:24 PM
Fifty-four minors escape a juvenile correctional facility in Sao Paulo on Monday after the population of interned minors turned riotous.
SAO PAULO, BRAZIL (AUGUST 13, 2013) (TV RECORD) - Dozens of minors were caught on camera as they escaped a juvenile correctional facility in Sao Paulo on Monday (August 12).
Fifty-four interned youths managed to flee the large compound after a riot broke out earlier in the day, according to police.Many escapees scaled a large wall and then shimmied down a nearby tree before shedding their uniforms and making a run for it.
The exodus of youths occurred at the Foundation House juvenile correctional facility located in the east zone of Brazil's largest metropolis of Sao Paulo.
The inmates, although unarmed, also briefly took the facility's director and 28 other employees hostage.
The hostages were held for over three hours before finally being freed.
A spokesman for the Foundation House facility, Jair Borba, said he didn't yet know how the incident had developed.
"In the beginning of the escape, there were police posted around the centre when they initiated the negotiation, but I don't know when police exited this area and left it without anyone on the lookout," Borba said.
An official investigation has been launched into the cause of the largest riot the facility has experienced in five years.
Another riot at a separate Foundation facility in Sao Paulo's west zone also broke out on Monday but no inmates were reported to have escaped.
Twelve hostages were taken during the west zone riot but no one was injured and the tumult was eventually brought to a peaceful conclusion.
A mother of one of the adolescents interned at the east zone facility where dozens escaped was concerned.
"I was worried, not knowing what happened, if he (her son) was okay, if he was still inside the facility," the mother said.
Police began immediately apprehending escaped youths on Monday. By Tuesday morning, local police reported that they had re-captured 22 of the 54 youths that fled the east zone facility.