Hours after 11 inmates escaped from the Orleans Parish Justice Center, the Orleans Parish district attorney is endorsing the candidate running against the incumbent sheriff in October’s election.
In a campaign email, District Attorney Jason Williams threw his support behind Michelle Woodfork in the upcoming election for Orleans Parish sheriff. Woodfork, a veteran of the New Orleans Police Department who retired in 2023 after serving nine months as interim superintendent, is running against Susan Hutson to become New Orleans's sheriff. In that post, she would over see the Orleans Parish Justice Center. Woodfork now works in Williams’s office.
In the email, Williams asked his supporters to consider donating to Woodfork’s campaign and to join them at an upcoming campaign event. It is unclear if Williams’s endorsement email was sent in response to Friday’s jail escape or if it was a scheduled email blast, but the message coincided with incident. Williams even alluded to the jail in his message, saying that Woodfork is “capable of running a constitutionally sound jail while actively participating in the broader fight for public safety across the city, far beyond the jail walls.”
“Very rarely do we have the chance to elect a proven leader who has already been battle-tested for the exact role they’re seeking,” Williams wrote. “We all had a front row seat as New Orleans became the murder capital of the country—and we witnessed her work hand-in-hand with my office to create, implement, and execute real strategies that helped us claw our way out of that grim distinction.”