“Last week was a movie,” as the kids are saying these days. And last week in New Orleans was a movie, as it often is. But that movie wasn’t Escape from Alcatraz. It wasn’t even Chicken Run.
With new details coming to light about the jail break, you can’t deny the escapees hit the nail on the head: Slipping free of Orleans Parish Justice Center is just way ‘To Easy.’ It's starting to feel like their message was less of a taunt and closer to critical feedback for OPSO to try harder.
President of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, Rafael Goyenche, joined WWL to present a fresh timeline of the staggering failure by the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office to realize that ten prisoners escaped. What's revealed supports the narrative that what went down was not some brilliant ultra-premeditated ordeal.
“This wasn’t like Shawshank Redemption,” says Goyenche, “where somebody carved out a hole in the wall and covered it up with a poster of Raquel Welch. They pulled the toilet from the wall, exposing the hole. They didn't bother trying to pull the toilet back to conceal that. They wrote graffiti on the wall, mocking the fact that it was easy to escape…It took the guards about 8 hours to poke their heads in that cell and realize why the 10 food trays weren’t claimed at 5:15 am.”
The many necessary failures needed for a successful escape
Goyenche explains the two main pillars of jail security: Technology and personnel to ensure inmates follow protocol.
“What we saw with this escape is that both of those fundamental platforms were compromised,” says Goyenche.
The MCC President breaks it down, saying, “The inmates who escaped were in a pod. Every pod has 30 cells…Two beds in each cell. A maximum total of 60 inmates per pod. Every pod is supposed to have a physical deputy assigned at all times. Meaning that the deputy is on the floor of the pod, walking around.”
Related
Goyeneche continues, “Every pod is viewed by a security booth…The deputy or civilian guard can look at camera feeds from the pods in this security booth module. In addition to live camera feeds, they have a cell panel that indicates if the cell doors are open or closed. If the cell doors are open, there’s a red light; if they’re closed, it's a green light.”
So, on top of the jail, the cells, and the locks, you have about four additional layers of technology and personnel to ensure security.
And if you ask which part failed, the answer is every one.
A catalogue of failure
Below Goyeneche's stage-by-stage outline of what went wrong.
May 15th, Thursday (10:30 pm) - The jail goes on lockdown with no guard present in the pod
Goyeneche explains that on the night of the 15th, the jail was placed on lockdown. The inmates were put to bed, and the cells were locked.
“The guard that is supposed to be there is supposed to check the doors,” Goyeneche says. “There was no guard on the floor of that pod on Thursday morning of May 15th and Friday, May 16th… That means the pod was being monitored by the civilian or deputy in the security booth.”
May 16th, Friday (12:22 am) - Inmates break out of cells with no security monitor present
“At 12:30 am, an inmate was captured on video tugging on the cell door,” Goyeneche explains.
“The inmate tugging on that door had to leave his cell because that was some 2 hours after they were supposedly locked in their cell,” he continues. “There should’ve been a notification (from the cell panel security system).”
This occurred in several cells, with images of inmates tugging on cell doors sourced back to as early as 12:22 am.
Goyeneche explains how inmates got past the supposedly secure cell doors, saying, “If that door is locked, you can wrap a chain around the bumper of a truck and not pull that door open. But the locking mechanism has been compromised because inmates clogged it with toilet paper. The inmates know it’s closed but not locked. Eventually, he gets it open.”
With the mechanisms in place, even without the floor guard on duty, this should’ve been enough to sound the alarm. Not so, Goyeneche explains.
“The person who was supposed to be in the booth watching the camera feeds and the cell panel decided to go to lunch. So there’s literally nobody watching. This is information released by the sheriff’s office. All of this is based on videos that have been released or that the sheriff reported,” he says.
May 16th, Friday (12:23 am - 1:00 am) - Inmates make the escape unnoticed
Immediately following this, “At least 5 other cells are open, because a total of ten inmates poured through the hole in the wall created from the cell being tugged on. The toilet was removed, exposing the hole. Ten inmates who weren’t in that cell escaped through that hole.”
Close to 1 am, an additional camera flags the inmates escaping through a loading dock. Then they passed through a road within the facility that was under construction.
May 16th, Friday (1:19 am) - Inmates break free of the facility
Cameras catch the inmates scaling a fence, using blankets to mask the barbed wire fence. Shortly after, a traffic camera spotted the inmates crossing I-10.
May 16th, Friday (1:19 am - 5:15 am) - Jail staff fail to realize the escape
Following the escape was a period of inactivity as escapees made their way into the city.
“No one has disclosed when they (the monitor) came back from lunch,” says Goyenche. “No one has disclosed whether the cell door control panel was operational or not. The sheriff is claiming several of the cameras were compromised, but made no disclosures as to the cell control panel. We do know that if it's working and the cell doors are not locked, a red light is on… So if that monitor returned from lunch, that panel should’ve alerted them.”
“On every shift, there is a lieutenant and a sergeant, and they make rounds through every pod,” Goyeneche continues. “They're supposed to be at least three inspections where the sergeant or lieutenant goes onto every pod and checks to make sure the inmates are conforming with the conditions of the lockdown. So at nighttime, even if the inmates are in their bunks, supposedly, the lieutenant and sergeant are supposed to go into that pod and observe that the inmates are there. Apparently, that didn’t happen. All of those procedures in place were compromised and failed. We know the inmates left the facility around 1:00 am, and we know because video cameras captured that.”
Goyenehce points out that although Sheriff Susan Hutson continuously cited an aging camera system and poor infrastructure as a contributing factor for the escape, had anyone been around to monitor the camera feed, they would have observed the escape taking place in real time.
May 16th, Friday (5:15 am) - Jail staff fail to recognize ten inmates didn’t collect breakfast trays
One of the most significant failures occurred during the breakfast seating, which was addressed in a joint meeting between the New Orleans City Council and the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office.
“Every morning, the commissary brings in food trays for breakfast for each inmate who is on a particular pod. Even though there are 60 beds, if there aren’t 60 inmates, they don't bring 60 trays. They bring trays that correspond to the number of inmates in a pod,” Goyeneche explains.
“So at 5:15 Friday morning, when breakfast was served and the inmates were released, they had 10 unclaimed trays. Nobody bothered to check why 10 inmates didn't eat breakfast,” he continues. “All they had to do was stick their head into the cell with the hole in the wall and discover why the 10 inmates weren’t there for breakfast. But that didn’t happen.”
May 16th, Friday (6:30 am) - Jail staff fails to conduct head count
“Shift change occurs at 6:30 am," says Goyeneche. "When there’s a shift change, there’s supposed to be a head count performed. For some reason, that didn’t occur. The headcount wasn't officially confirmed until two hours later at 8:30 am."
May 16th, Friday (8:30 am) - Escape is confirmed, but number of escapees is mislabelled
“Seven and a half hours later, it's been confirmed that there’s been an escape. It doesn't say when they discover the hole in the wall,” says Goyeneche
“The initial report that was given to law enforcement as to the number of escapees was 7. Then it was amended to 11. Then it was changed to 10,” he continues. “So it took 7 hours for the sheriff’s office to determine that 10 inmates had escaped at 1:00 am.”
“They missed opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to ring the bell. We’re lucky we have five in custody because the inmates essentially had an 8 and a half hour head start on law enforcement being notified,” Goyeneche says.
Related
Then, what came after was an entirely different failure. The lull in notifying law enforcement agencies, victims harmed by the escapees, the press, and the public.
Goyenece says, "I checked with one of the primary law enforcement agencies. They weren’t alerted by the Sheriff’s office. They saw a social media post that inmates had escaped, and the LSP had to call up the Sheriff’s office to verify that an escape had in fact occurred."
With five inmates still on the run, there's still much to unfold, including how much help the inmates had from inside. But among these developments will be details around the fact that OPSO ignored known flaws in the system until it was far too late.
In closing, Goyeneche explains, “These residents checked out early… What we’re finding out is that the federal monitors have been warning about this for years.”
Related
