6 Weeks Later, NYPD Catches Escaped Brooklyn Prisoner

The Oct. 20 prisoner escape that NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton called “an embarrassment for the department” has finally been resolved after a six-week-long manhunt, a police spokesman said Wednesday morning.

Brooklyn resident Gerald Brooks, 39, evaded arrest back in October by shoving the officer who was escorting him to a police vehicle in East New York, then darting down Sheffield Avenue, police said — all with his hands cuffed behind his back.

Brooks was reportedly arrested on a warrant for driving without a license (a felony charge), but was also wanted for questioning in five incidents of domestic violence.

He had reportedly been arrested 58 times before.

“I can confirm that he’s been re-arrested,” a police spokesman said Wednesday.

The NYPD press office would not reveal the location or details of his arrest, but said top brass were planning a press conference for later in the day.

At another (scathing) press conference in October, Bratton called the officers who lost Brooks “an embarrassment to themselves in terms of their professional skills, or lack of them, in once again letting a prisoner escape in this city.”

He said they would be “dealt with very appropriately for that incompetence.”

Brooks was reportedly the fifth prisoner to escape NYPD custody in a five-month period.

“I’m getting tired of it, as is the chief,” Bratton said of the pattern.