Ten inmates escaped from a New Orleans jail after breaching a wall behind a toilet and possibly having help, the local sheriff said Friday. So far only three of the men have been found.
“We have indication that these detainees received assistance in their escape from individuals inside of our department,” Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson said at a news conference Friday afternoon.
After breaching the wall at the Orleans Justice Center in New Orleans, the inmates left through a door used to bring in supplies around 1 a.m., scaled a wall and ran across the interstate, Hutson said. The words “To Easy LoL” can be seen written on the wall above the hole, with an arrow pointing toward it, according to a photo shared by the sheriff’s office.
The escape wasn’t discovered until hours later, at 8:30 a.m., when staff noticed them missing during a routine head count, according to the sheriff.
While inmates are normally in lockdown at the facility at 10:30 p.m., the inmates were able to escape because of defective locks on the cells, officials said. “There are deficiencies in these facilities that cause public safety concerns,” Hutson said.
Following the escape, three jail employees were suspended without pay pending the outcome of an internal investigation, the sheriff’s office said Friday evening. It’s unclear why they were subject to disciplinary action.
The 10 escaped inmates have been identified as Corey Boyd, Dkenan Dennis, Jermaine Donald, Derrick Groves, Antoine Massey, Robert Moody, Kendell Myles, Gary Price, Leo Tate and Lenton Vanburen, according to the sheriff’s office.
Online records show the inmates – who range in age from 19 to 42 years old – face a wide array of charges. Several have been charged with murder. Other charges include aggravated assault with a firearm, false imprisonment with a weapon, armed robbery with a firearm and domestic abuse battery.
Officials initially reported that 11 people had escaped the facility, but later said it was a miscount and 10 had escaped. The inmate had been moved to a different cell, but it had not been updated in the system, Hutson said.
Three escapees were found in various parts throughout the city, authorities said. Investigators have “active leads” on the other individuals, New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said at a news conference Friday night. The fugitives will be relocated to Louisiana state prisons.
One of the escapees, Myles, was captured after deputies found him hiding under a car at a hotel parking garage, according to the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office. Myles ran away when troopers tried to make contact with him, but he was quickly apprehended, Louisiana State Police said. Myles was previously charged with attempted second-degree murder, according to Orleans Parish records. He has been rebooked for a new charge of simple escape, the sheriff’s office said on Facebook.
Another escapee, Moody, was also captured following a Crime Stoppers tip, the sheriff’s office announced Friday night. He had previously been charged with aggravated second-degree battery, among other charges.
A third person, Dennis, was taken into custody, the sheriff’s office said. He was previously charged with armed robbery with a firearm, according to Orleans Parish records.
“You can run, but you CANNOT HIDE. We will hunt each of you down,” Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said in a social media post Friday night.
Hutson said the sheriff’s office is working toward getting the seven remaining inmates back into custody and investigating exactly how they escaped the facility. Investigators are combing through phone calls and messages to identify who the inmates communicated with and interviewing jail employees and inmates. More than 200 law enforcement personnel are searching locations where the escapees could potentially be.
The FBI’s New Orleans field office is helping to locate the individuals and is offering a reward up to $5,000 for tips leading to their arrest. Crime Stoppers is offering another $2,000 reward for each apprehension.
“We do acknowledge there is no way people can get out of this facility without there being some type of lapse in security,” Hutson said. “It’s almost impossible…for anybody to get out of this facility without help from the outside.”
While the sheriff blamed the escape on poor infrastructure and understaffing, officials say there was a dangerous delay in communication to the public and other law enforcement agencies.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill called for an investigation and for anyone involved with the escape to be arrested and prosecuted. Because the escapees may have crossed state lines, she also contacted attorneys general in Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma and Tennessee so they can alert their law enforcement agencies.
“The first priority in any escape must be the immediate capture of the inmates and coordination with state and local law enforcement — but that effort cannot come at the expense of timely notification to the public, which is also critical to keeping communities safe,” she said. “Someone clearly dropped the ball and there’s no excuse for this.”
Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams, who prosecuted Groves, one of the escapees, called the escape “a complete failure of the most basic responsibilities entrusted to a sheriff or a jail administrator.”
“I have never heard of a prison break or a jailbreak involving this many people in my 52 years,” Williams told CNN Friday.
The sheriff’s office urged the public to be on high alert for the missing inmates, who are considered armed and dangerous. Anyone who thinks they might see an escaped inmate or know his whereabouts should call Crime Stoppers or 911 immediately.
“The remaining individuals are still being actively pursued, and our deputies, in collaboration with local and state law enforcement, are working tirelessly to locate and return them to custody,” the sheriff’s office said.
How the escape unfolded
The inmates at the New Orleans jail began yanking on a sliding door to a cell to pull it off track, and around 12:20 a.m. were able to break open the door, according to Hutson. By 12:43 a.m., the inmates entered the cell. As a corrections monitoring technician stepped away to grab food, they breached the wall behind a toilet.
Some toiletries in a handicap cell were used to remove some bolts and fixtures, Chief of Corrections Jay Mallett said at the news conference Friday. And at least one steel bar protecting plumbing fixtures appeared to have been intentionally cut using a tool, the sheriff’s office 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 is an inside job,” Mallett said.
Around 1 a.m., the inmates were seen on surveillance video exiting a loading door where supplies are brought in and leaping toward a road behind the building, according to Hutson. As they scaled a fence along Interstate 10 around 1:20 a.m., the inmates used blankets to avoid being cut by barbed wire. They then ran across the interstate and shed their clothing in a nearby neighborhood.
More than seven hours later, they were discovered to be missing during a routine headcount Friday morning. As jail staff searched the facility, investigators combed through video footage.
The deputy who was on duty notified jail leadership and the United States Marshals Service fugitive task force was notified before 9:30 a.m. – about an hour after the inmates were discovered missing, according to the sheriff. The New Orleans Police Department was also notified around the same time. It was a “fluid situation” as authorities worked to get a handle on 1,400 people in the facility, the sheriff said.
“When this went down, our first concern is to find out who these folks are, confirm, and then we’ve got to lock down the whole jail and…make sure nobody else is missing,” Hutson said. “We are investigating our own to find out exactly what happened and where those lapses were.”
Authorities blame poor infrastructure, staffing
The security breach occurred on the first floor of the facility, where the cells have sliding doors that “are able to be manipulated by forced off the track that they’re on, which allows individuals to enter and exit at will,” Mallett said.
“The primary security breach and concern is the facilities’ infrastructure,” Mallett said. “We’ve identified that we have a large number of high-security individuals in a minimum custody facility.”
There’s a “critical need” for repairs and upgrades at the facility to ensure that doors and locks are fully functional, Hutson said. Bianka Brown, the chief financial officer at the sheriff’s office, said the budget would need to be increased from $68 million to $150 million. The locks would cost $5.2 million.
Additionally, the facility is only at about 60% staffing, and 150 more deputies are needed, the sheriff said. On Friday morning, there were four supervisors and 36 staff on-site, which Mallett called a “low ratio.” They “wouldn’t know that that was going on behind the scene,” he said. There was no deputy on the jail pod when the escape happened.
If they learn that any staff are responsible, they will be held accountable, “both administratively and criminally,” the sheriff said.
Public should have been notified sooner, officials say
It took several hours after jail officials discovered the inmates were missing for the public to be notified about the escape through the City of New Orleans’ emergency preparedness system.
“NOPD is assisting OPSO after subjects escaped custody. There is no known threat but stay aware and report suspicious activity to 9-1-1,” the NOLA Ready alert that was texted to residents Friday afternoon said.
Williams, the district attorney, said members of his staff were concerned for their safety and were leaving town with their families. Groves, the escapee he prosecuted, was convicted of the 2018 murders of two men on Mardi Gras Day.
“I along with my team came to work this morning a rock’s throw from this jail having no knowledge that we should be on guard and that’s inexcusable,” Williams said.
He added that he will send in his own investigators and will “work with whoever we have to pull in” on the investigation. “We have to dig into every single thing that occurred here,” he said.
This story has been updated with additional information.
CNN’s Jeremy Grisham and Devon Sayers contributed to this report.
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