A teenager convicted of attempted murder escaped from a juvenile facility in Bunkie in mid-September, but his victim, a New Orleans resident, and the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s office were not informed for more than a week.
District Attorney Jason Williams said the teen, Lynell Reynolds, had been held in Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice custody after being convicted of attempted second-degree murder. He was recently ordered released to a “non-secure care program” in Lake Charles but apparently escaped before arriving there.
“Regrettably, my office was not made aware of the escape by the court or the Office of Juvenile Justice,” Williams said in a written statement Sunday.
In 2019, the then-13-year-old Reynolds was found guilty of attempting to murder 22-year-old Darrelle Scott, who was shot in the back and paralyzed from the waist down while he walked along Morrison Road in New Orleans East on March 26, 2019.
Prosecutors cast Reynolds as a repeat offender who’d taken advantage of previous lenience from the court.
A psychiatrist and several of Reynolds’ teachers and social workers from ReNEW SciTech Academy testified in favor of treatment rather than confinement. They said Reynolds needed trauma-centric psychiatric care after having witnessed four family members killed by the time he was 6. They testified he had never received the treatment he needed to address it.
Williams took issue in his press release with the decision to release Reynolds to the non-secure care program, which he said his prosecutors objected to. But it was not clear whether that decision to transfer Reynolds factored into his escape, and Williams' office could not be reached for comment Sunday.
The news release said Williams was concerned about “conditions of confinement for youth offenses” but “we also have a duty to further public safety and fight for victims, witnesses, (and) their families.”
The district attorney’s office informed Scott of Reynold’s escape, Williams said.
“We sincerely hope Lynell Reynolds is apprehended with out any harm or injury to community members or law enforcement,” he said.
