Australian Prisoner On The Run Plays Poker, Uses Facebook
July 23rd, 2010
Justin Grant’s week of freedom apparently included plenty of time online.
An Australian prisoner who escaped from correctional officers while being treated at a local hospital has been caught – but not before he spent a week at large, using Facebook the whole time.
21-year-old Justin Grant broke away from his escort while at a hospital being treated for a hand injury last week, escaping while wearing handcuffs and a t-shirt reading “Corrective Services.” From there he went underground – or at least as underground as one can be while posting frequent updates to Facebook. “Ha u watch ile hav to hand myself in before they cach me” was one status update posted in broken English to Grant’s Facebook page last week. He later sent out an invitation to a poker game via the site, and over the last week he added several people to his friends list.
Grant is actually the fifth person this year to escape from the prison in Townsville, a town of about 160,000 in the northeastern part of the country. It appears, though, that he’s the first one to openly taunt the authorities via social media while on the lam – if it was even Grant making the taunts. At least one Australian government official thinks someone other than Grant was running his Facebook page over the last week in order to throw police off.
“One of the suggestions here, which I know was raised by police yesterday, was whether or not it is in fact the fugitive running the Facebook site,” said Andrew Fraser, Treasurer of Queensland. Given the nature of his arrest – he surrendered after being surrounded in a fast food restaurant parking lot in south Townsville – it seems much more likely that Grant knew he’d eventually be caught and was just enjoying his moment of freedom by thumbing his nose at The Man.
Grant is currently assisting the authorities with their investigation into his escape. Maybe before he’s hauled back to his cell he’ll get the chance to play some poker with them, since they obviously have a habit of giving him way too much credit.
