One Of Two Escaped Inmates Recaptured

By Samantha Abernethy in News on Dec 21, 2012 5:00PM

Authorities have apprehended Joseph "Jose" Banks, one of the two inmates who escaped from the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago. Was he on a beach in Mexico? No. He was barely five miles away from the prison he had escaped from.

The FBI and Chicago Police found Banks late Thursday night in a two-story red brick apartment building in the 2300 block of North Bosworth in the Lincoln Park neighborhood.

A neighbor, Hezeckiah Hopper-Bey, told the Sun-Times that he "saw Banks on a cell phone outside with a white T-shirt and blue gym shorts before 20 FBI officials swarmed the block."

The Sun-Times writes:

Hopper-Bey said he saw Banks run down a path between two buildings. Banks then darted in to the building into a first floor apartment.

Minutes later, FBI officials emerged with what appeared to be a yellow shoe box and a handcuffed Banks, Hopper-Bey said.

“He wasn’t shouting. He was walking calm, like. ‘I got caught,’” Hopper-Bey said of the defeated bank robber.

Banks is due in court today. He faces another five years in prison for escape charges. The other escaped inmate, Kenneth Conley, is still on the lose.