After breaking free of his shackles, handcuffs and New Orleans Office of Juvenile Justice personnel on May 31, an "extremely dangerous" 17-year-old inmate called his mom for a ride to the West Bank, officials said.
Now mother and son are both incarcerated.
Curtis Tassin, 17, has a criminal history that includes assault, battery, armed robbery and carjacking, according to reporting by WBRZ-TV in Baton Rouge.
And his mother, Kenoine Rogers, 32, had a warrant out for her arrest when she allegedly aided her son's jailbreak. She's accused of fleeing the scene after a Bywater hit-and-run accident with injuries on Sept. 4, 2021.
A family history of flight
New Orleans police believe Rogers crashed a silver sedan with up to eight passengers inside — including four juveniles — into a utility pole at Saint Claude and Poland avenues, then fled before police arrived. Two adults went to the hospital with injuries.
She was wanted for one count each of reckless operation of a vehicle, hit-and-run driving, no registration, no insurance and for four counts of failure to utilize child passenger restraint systems.
Now, in addition to those charges, Rogers faces charges of being a principle to simple escape, accessory after the fact to simple escape and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
New Orleans police said it wasn't the first time Rogers had stymied their attempts to re-arrest Tassin when he was on the lam. The youth had escaped from multiple youth detention centers, including the beleaguered Bridge City Center For Youth last June and the Swanson Center for Youth in 2021. Most recently, he'd been held at Acadiana Center for Youth at St. Martinville.
During those escapes, Rogers was "evasive ... and did not assist law enforcement," according to an affidavit for arrest warrant.
A ride to the West Bank
This time, police believe Rogers gave Tassin a ride in a gray two-door Infiniti G35 with a switched license plate shortly after he removed his shackles and fled from the transport van outside the juvenile courthouse at 1100 Milton Street on May 31. He was wearing handcuffs when he escaped, but somehow slipped out of those too, according to court documents. Office of Juvenile Justice workers recovered his handcuffs in front of the complex, according to the documents.
The evening after his escape, Louisiana state troopers and NOPD's special ops division found Rogers at a "known associate's" Behrman-area backyard — the same place Tassin had crashed during a previous escape. The associate's mom said Rogers had dropped Tassin off in a small gray car at around 10 a.m. May 31. Rogers didn't mention that her fugitive son was the subject of a manhunt.
On June 5, after conducting surveillance on Rogers' Broadmoor apartment and seeing her enter a gray two-door Infiniti G35, New Orleans police obtained a warrant for Rogers' arrest.
Rogers was booked into Orleans Parish Prison at around 5 p.m. Tuesday. Her bond is set at $10,000.
The case remains under investigation.
