MIAMI -- Miami-Dade police said that just before 10 p.m. Monday, a Crime Stoppers tip led them to a serial rape suspect who was on the run for nearly a week.

Police said they captured Reynaldo Rapalo at a Blockbuster on Bird Road near Southwest 67th Avenue. They said he was captured without incident in a "tactical arrest." Investigators said that means the arrest was planned and executed as a result of the investigation, not a beat officer spotting Rapalo.

In a news conference at midnight on Monday, Miami-Dade Police Department Director Robert Parker credited a Crime Stoppers tip with ultimately leading to the capture. Parker said that investigators had received more than 280 tips from the public, one that gave them very good information about Rapalo's location and new look. Rapalo had shaved his mustache, combed his hair forward, and was wearing jeans and a pink sweater at the time of his capture, not what he was wearing when he escaped.

The arresting officers, detectives Wayne Cox and Al Velez, who responded to the tip, said that Rapalo ran away from them when he was questioned. They said Rapalo told them he was a homeless man from Nicaragua.

"He was trying to throw us off a little bit," Cox said. "He said he was from Nicaragua. He thought we were (from Immigration and Naturalization Services). We asked him to have a seat, and at that time he took off on foot."

Parker later said that Rapalo was “cocky” about having managed to stay free for six days.

"He's quite the crafty individual," Parker said. "He knows how to move around and how to plan things. He's methodical, logical in his thought process and he had staying on the lam on his mind. He even talked about the fact that he had been out for several days, and he was proud of that accomplishment."

Police had said that Rapalo was armed, and they were concerned about violence during his arrest, but that was not the case.

Immediately after his original arrest last year, Rapalo had said that he would kill himself before he would go to jail, so arresting officers had to deal with that concern as well.

Miami-Dade Police Chief John Timoney said Monday that the escaped prisoner's capture is a “huge relief.”

"Cops take that stuff personal, and they should take it personal," Timoney said. "And that's why they weren't giving up."

Rapalo will now be held without bond in the Miami-Dade County main jail, under tighter security than his last incarceration.

Police said the person who called in the tip would remain anonymous and collect $36,000 for leading police to Rapalo.

Rapalo’s Escape

State, county and city law enforcement officials were on high alert after Rapalo, known to investigators as the Shenandoah rapist, escaped from the Turner-Guilford Knight Correctional Center last Tuesday night.

Authorities said Rapalo and another inmate climbed through a ceiling vent and made their way onto the roof of the facility. Rapalo, 34, used bed sheets to lower himself six stories to the ground. The other inmate was apprehended outside the jail because he broke his legs when he jumped.

Timoney said he believes Rapalo had help escaping.

Timoney said Rapalo used tools that appear to have been smuggled into the jail. Investigators will closely scrutinize any jailhouse visitors that Rapalo had, he said.

There are also indications that someone was planning to meet Rapalo after he escaped, Timoney said. He declined to further describe who that person was or how the getaway might have been pulled off.

Rapalo was scheduled to appear in court Jan. 5 for DNA evidence that allegedly ties him to seven rapes and four attempted assaults in the Shenandoah neighborhood of Miami dating back to 2002. The victims range in age from 11 to 79.

He gained notoriety as the subject of a documentary feature called "Code 33" that chronicles the alleged serial rapist's crime spree and his subsequent arrest.

Residents of Shenandoah were relieved Tuesday morning when they woke up to the news of Rapalo's recapture.

"I'm glad he's been captured and, you know, everybody can relax," Wayne Hallendeck said.

The Miami-Dade Corrections Department has come under scrutiny since Local 10 found that months ago corrections officers and a supervisor suggested to the department that an electronic bed linen inventory be instituted to prevent the kind of escape that Rapalo carried out last week.

"It's good to know that the right guy is behind bars again," Velez said. "And, hopefully, he'll stay this time."