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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/us/new-orleans-jail-escape.html

The rectangular hole in the cell wall was just big enough for a person to squeeze through. Right next to it, a metal toilet and sink had been ripped from the wall. Above the hole, someone had scrawled a picture of a face with a tongue sticking out and taunting messages for Sheriff’s Office officials, saying it was all too “easy. LOL.”

Ten inmates, who may have had help from jail workers, broke out of a New Orleans jail early Friday, escaping through that hole in a cell wall, the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office said. The inmates were then seen on surveillance video leaving through a door on a loading dock, having shed their orange jail uniforms and wearing civilian clothes, before scaling a wall and running across an interstate, Sheriff Susan Hutson said.

The Louisiana State Police said on Friday that one of the escapees, Kendell Myles, 20, had been arrested in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Another, Robert Moody, 21, was captured Friday night in the Central City neighborhood in New Orleans. Another escapee, Dkenan Dennis, was also arrested, Anne Kirkpatrick, the New Orleans police chief, said in a news conference Friday night.

The Sheriff’s Office warned that the remaining escapees should be considered “armed and dangerous.”

Quote

 

“We have indications that these detainees received assistance in their escape from individuals inside of our department,” Sheriff Hutson said on Friday, adding that supervisors and lower-level staff members were working when the inmates escaped from the jail, called the Orleans Parish Justice Center, at around 1 a.m.

A civilian employee of the sheriff’s office who was the only person monitoring security systems in the part of the jail where the escape occurred had left his station at the time to get food, an office spokeswoman said on Friday night. Three Sheriff’s Office employees have been suspended without pay, she added.

Officials said they were investigating multiple security failures. Although the jail was placed on lockdown at 10:30 p.m. the night before the escape, the inmates began tampering with a locked cell door at 12:23 a.m., ultimately breaking it open, the Sheriff’s Office said.

The office blamed “defective locks and doors” for the breach, and Sheriff Hutson said she had previously complained about the locks to a judge and to city officials.

Jeworski Mallett, chief of corrections at the Sheriff’s Office, said the inmates had escaped from a part of the jail where sliding doors can be forced off their tracks, allowing people to enter and exit at will. The metal sink and toilet had been removed from a wall in a cell, and the bolts had been taken out, he said.

“We know that this could not be removed from the inside, so we are investigating that to see exactly who entered these areas, what kind of work was done, if there was work being done, and if this was an inside job,” he said. Four supervisors and 36 staff members were working at the time, he said.

About a third of the security cameras in the jail are “currently inoperable,” the Sheriff’s Office said, including three cameras in the unit where the escape occurred.

Officials noticed during a routine head count at 8:30 a.m. on Friday that the detainees were missing, Sheriff Hutson said. She said the office then activated “emergency protocols” and began a search for the inmates.

“We do acknowledge there is no way people can get out of this facility without there being some type of lapse in security,” Sheriff Hutson said. “It’s almost impossible — not completely, but almost impossible — for anybody to get out of this facility without help from the outside.”

The Sheriff’s Office previously said 11 inmates had escaped but later corrected the number to 10. It said it had mistakenly listed an inmate as an escapee who was actually still incarcerated.

Most of the escapees are in their 20s; the youngest is 19, and the oldest is 42. Derrick Groves, 27, is awaiting sentencing, after his conviction last year on second-degree murder charges, according to the district attorney’s office.

The escape led to sharp criticism of the Sheriff’s Office from officials who questioned how 10 inmates had managed to escape and why the office had not immediately notified the public.

“Someone clearly dropped the ball, and there’s no excuse for this,” Louisiana’s attorney general, Liz Murrill, said in a statement on social media. She called for an investigation to determine what had happened.

Jason Williams, the Orleans Parish district attorney, said in an interview on WDSU, a local television station, that the escape was “an unprecedented failure.” He expressed frustration that he, the public and the news media had not been notified immediately when the inmates escaped.

He raised the possibility of a grand jury investigation to examine who was involved. He said his office had also contacted witnesses involved in the inmates’ cases to notify them that the men had escaped.

“I’ve got a deep fear right now for people who were brave enough to come forward to testify in these cases,” he said. “This is a very dangerous situation that has only been made more dangerous because of the poor leadership and lack of transparency.”

The Sheriff’s Office pushed back against criticism that it had not promptly notified others of the escape. It said that the United States Marshals, the Louisiana State Police and the Louisiana Division of Probation and Parole were notified by 9:30 a.m., and that the New Orleans Police Department was alerted immediately after that.

Sheriff Hutson told the New Orleans City Council in October that the jail had about 1,500 inmates, well above the 1,250-inmate cap set by the Council and far more than the 900 inmates her staff could handle, NOLA.com reported last year.

While violent crime in New Orleans was down, Sheriff Hutson said in the article, there had been an influx of people charged solely with misdemeanors such as trespassing, shoplifting and simple assault.

“We still have to hold them,” she told the Council during its annual budget hearing, NOLA.com reported. “It stresses our facilities.”

The F.B.I. is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest of an escapee, and Crimestoppers GNO is offering a $2,000 reward.

 

 

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Posted
8 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

They had ten people in that cell?

No, but it's not uncommon for cells to be unlocked during the day.  Inmates are never supposed to enter anyone else's cell, but criminals are generally not known for following the rules.

Posted
1 minute ago, SameSame said:

No, but it's not uncommon for cells to be unlocked during the day.  Inmates are never supposed to enter anyone else's cell, but criminals are generally not known for following the rules.

Whoa! Perhaps they should be kept under some kind of surveillance.

Posted

I was a guest in that facility for a night when I was a freshman in college. One of my cell mates only had one arm and my buddies affectionately nicknamed him the one-armed bandit. Not my finest hour.

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Posted
I was a guest in that facility for a night when I was a freshman in college. One of my cell mates only had one arm and my buddies affectionately nicknamed him the one-armed bandit. Not my finest hour.

You know you can’t just leave it here. There is more information that is required.
Posted
11 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:


You know you can’t just leave it here. There is more information that is required.

Just drunken 18 yo antics on Bourbon Street. Fortunately judges in LA accept bribes, er donations, to make cases disappear off their docket.

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Posted
1 hour ago, royiv said:

Just drunken 18 yo antics on Bourbon Street. Fortunately judges in LA accept bribes, er donations, to make cases disappear off their docket.

Elaborate.  If you are trying to make this story disappear, you are doing a piss poor job of it 😜

Posted
3 hours ago, royiv said:

I was a guest in that facility for a night when I was a freshman in college. One of my cell mates only had one arm and my buddies affectionately nicknamed him the one-armed bandit. Not my finest hour.

Not Frederick Sykes?  Dumbasses!

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Posted
8 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

Not Frederick Sykes?  Dumbasses!

he borrowed your car the night of your wife's murder, he had the keys! no forced entry, richard. he telephoned sykes from your car, richard!

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Posted

I was on Bourbon for the millennium, took a bunch of pics with one of those cheap disposable cameras from the time. Sat in a glove compartment for many Texas years, but still have it to this day. What are the chances there's anything left that Walgreen's or the like could salvage? 

Posted
1 hour ago, shadow_operative2.0 said:

What are the chances there's anything left that Walgreen's or the like could salvage? 

do drug stores still develop film?

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