Today, I spoke with New Orleans City Councilmember JP Morrell, who recently made headlines for his keyring video, where he exposed how OPSO does little-to-no inventory documentation on something that's fairly integral to a jail: The keys.
Sheriff Hutson’s response was strange. She couldn’t deny that the keys Morrell managed to obtain from a whistleblower (a former OPSO employee) were OPSO keys. So she said, “The ones you’re showing off don’t open the jail or any cell.”
Morrell tells me that, sure, his keys very well may not open a specific cell. However, what the keys represent is a much more troubling reality.
“Those keys are probably not to any particular cells,” Morrell says. “But the challenge is about site security…That’s what those keys symbolize. If the inmates have the keys to the asylum, they can go anywhere.”
Of course, there are many unknowns at this time. But the more that comes out about OPSO security processes, or lack thereof, the more we can be pretty sure that the keys to the jail are just out in public circulation, and the sheriff has no way to track them.
“The key log shows that people are checking out keys for hundreds of days without accountability,” says Morrell. “As you know, with those types of keys, called star keys, a reputable locksmith will not copy them, but a disreputable one will. So we have no idea how many of these keys are out in the public right now.”
Why hasn’t Morrell called on Hutson to resign?
“What happens when a sheriff resigns? Their chief deputy becomes sheriff,” Morrell says, when asked if he believes, like I do, that it’s time for Hutson to step down.
“I’ve got a lot of pushback on why I haven't called on the sheriff to resign,” Morrell continues. “Under the law, currently, if the sheriff resigns, the sheriff basically hand-picks their replacement. If I thought there was competence at any level over there and there was a person we could all agree on to run the jail until the election is over, I think a resignation is appropriate. Now, I think the best-case scenario is for a federal judge to step in and weigh in on how this jail is going to function.”
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However, until Murrill and other monitors complete their investigations, we can’t know for sure if it’ll be possible to replace the current leadership.
“Somebody else needs to be running the jail, I just don't think it needs to be Susan or the hand-picked deputy that would be the next sheriff,” Morrell says.
The taxpayer cost of Hutson’s mismanagement
Depending on who you ask, the cost of the jail escape, as things stand, is between 1-4 million.
“That million is how much the city has spent. We’re spending about 200-250 thousand per week. That’s not included in how much the state or US Marshal is spending,” Morrell says.
He also reminds us that Hutson, despite sitting on a large reserve fund, continuously pressures the city council for more funding.
“She’s sitting on anywhere between 8-17 million in fund balance,” says Morrell. “She had the money to fix it the whole time. She wanted us to spend our money. Spend city money. Defund projects. Defund roads. Defund parks. Because she wanted to sit on cash reserves that we didn’t know about. I don’t know how much further you can get into the lane of malfeasance than that.”
Hutson mission to give iPads to Orleans Parish jail residents backfired in a big way
As we plummet further down the rabbit hole, further details emerge that expose how totally backwards OPSO has become under Hutson's leadership.
"When I toured the jail in 2022, her consultant, an Australian woman, talked about how it was super important how all of the residents—the sheriff repeatedly corrected every person that called an inmate an inmate, she said all the residents—have access to iPads because it would help them be more manageable, and they could use the iPads to stay in contact with their families,” says Morrell.
I said two things at one point,” Morrell continues. “Are you telling me that your priority, spending-wise, is to give iPads to people that are in jail?... Number two: All you're going to have if you give inmates iPads are insecure lines to the outside where they can do bad things."
From there, the writing was on the wall. Exactly what you think would happen, happened.
“What you see thus far in the reporting is that there was an unmonitored facetime call they later found out, acording to what’s been reported, where one of the individuals—I think Groves, whose still out—was planning on these iPads, or some other facetime app, how he was going to escape.”
Morrell explains just how huge of a slap in the face this is to anyone whose income gets cut by Orleans Parish taxes.
“The average person in the city of New Orleans can’t afford an iPad, yet their tax dollars are going toward giving iPads to people who are incarcerated.”
What to expect from ongoing investigations
Two inmates remain at large, the city continues to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars each week, and the Orleans Parish Justice Center is rotting from the inside out—all due to Sheriff Hutson's negligence.
Currently, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and legislative auditor Mike Waguespack have investigations underway that could result in the jail being handed over to federal or state authorities. But how likely is this?
Morrell explains that the need to gain control over the jail isn’t just in the best interest of the public; it’s in the best interest of the inmates.
“If we get this report back from the AG, the monitors, and the auditors, and they show there's as much mismanagement as we believe there to be, at that point it is incumbent that people on the federal level do what’s best to retain control of the facility,” Morrell says. “Remember, part of what the monitor had said in the report, the amount of violence and sexual assault in the jail has gone up under the sheriff. It's not just an issue of keeping the public safe, it's also about keeping the people in the jail safe.”
“Whether you’re an advocate for the rights of those incarcerated or you're someone who's scared to go out at night,” Morrell concludes, “neither party is served when the sheriff can't control their jail."
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