Suspect Recaptured After Escape From Custody

(USNewsBreak.com) – When prisoners are in custody, police officers and officials do everything in their power to ensure they remain there. However, sometimes things go wrong and inmates get the upper hand. That’s what happened recently in Louisiana. Fortunately, authorities have the convict back in custody.

On Sunday, February 25, a deputy was transporting 51-year-old Leon Ruffin, who was in custody on suspicion of murder, back to the jail from a medical center when he complained of pain in his leg. He was in a medical boot and said it had gotten caught on the cage. She pulled over the vehicle to help him and he attacked her. Ruffin allegedly sprayed the officer with pepper spray and then stole her vehicle. Authorities found the transport more than two hours later, and the suspect had escaped.

A convicted felon who escaped on Sunday after pepper spraying his transporting deputy and stealing her car was captured in New Orleans Tuesday, authorities said.https://t.co/vTUcpvNKVC

— ABC News (@ABC) February 27, 2024

Ruffin remained on the run for two days until authorities with the US Marshals and New Orleans Police in New Orleans East found him. Apparently, the suspect kept a low profile by staying in a hotel room in the city, where they also executed search warrants. Officers took him back into custody without incident.

In addition to the second-degree murder charge Ruffin faces, prosecutors are also charging him with assaulting a police officer, motor vehicle theft, aggravated escape, and trying to smuggle contraband — a lighter and cigarettes — into jail by concealing them in his rectum.

The same day officers recaptured Ruffin, authorities also arrested his wife, Shelita Ruffin, on charges of conspiracy to introduce contraband and conspiracy to commit aggravated escape. Prosecutors didn’t release any details about her involvement in helping her husband.

Speaking in a press release about the deputy who was transporting Ruffin, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joseph Lopinto said, “She treated somebody with compassion that doesn’t deserve compassion.” It’s also still unclear how Ruffin managed to get his hands on pepper spray. The deputy still had hers on her person.