Officials plead for the public’s help in capturing 7 escaped
Louisiana officials are appealing for the public’s help recapturing seven inmates still on the run after escaping a New Orleans jail early Friday, warning any accomplices will face consequences.
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 threeof the men have been found.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has condemned the jailbreak as evidence of the failure of a “progressive criminal justice system.”
The seven inmates still at large have been identified as Corey Boyd, Jermaine Donald, Derrick Groves, Antoine Massey, Gary Price, Leo Tate and Lenton Vanburen. Both the FBI and Landry on Sunday announced increased rewards for information leading to their recapture. Robert Moody, Dkenan Dennis and Kendell Myles have been returned to custody, according to police.
Louisiana State Police Superintendent Colonel Robert Hodges said the escapees were constantly changing locations.
“Unfortunately, they have friends and family members who are helping them and concealing them and helping them move, which makes law enforcement’s job more challenging. We end up getting there just a little too late,” he said at a news conference Sunday night.
Hodges said the remaining inmates were believed to still be in Louisiana.
FBI New Orleans Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Tapp urged the public to pass on any information they might have. “Seven dangerous inmates have been on the streets for more than two days, and we strongly believe that there are folks out there helping these inmates evade capture,” he said.
The FBI and law enforcement partners would ensure anyone helping inmates evade capture would be held accountable, Tapp said.
Landry said the “massive” jailbreak should never have happened and demonstrated a systemic failure. The State Attorney General’s Office would be leading an investigation into how it occurred, he said at Sunday’s news conference.
“I’ve also ordered the Department of Corrections to audit the Orleans Parish Correctional Facility for compliance with basic jail guidelines and to remove all D.O.C. inmates that were currently in the Orleans Parish Correctional Facility,” Landry said.
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.
The governor said nine of the detainees had been in pre-trial stages in the Orleans Parish Criminal Court system for years. Five had been charged with additional offenses while in jail.
“Had they gone to trial, had they been convicted, had they been sentenced, they would most likely not be in Orleans Parish jail, but in our custody of one of the state penitentiaries,” he said. Landry announced an executive order instructing the state inspector general to get an inventory from the sheriff of all pre-trial detainees and those awaiting sentences.
Another executive order would mandate Louisiana’s judiciary commission to establish triggers for investigations – such as “an automatic review of any judge that has a disproportionate number of acquittals, as we have seen here in Orleans Parish.”
“I hope that everyone understands that the video of those prisoners escaping epitomizes a progressive criminal justice system,” Landry said.
After breaching the wall behind a toilet at the Orleans Justice Center, the inmates left through a door used to bring in supplies around 1 a.m., scaled a wall and ran across the interstate, Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson said Friday.
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, the sheriff said.
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 Friday.
“We have indication that these detainees received assistance in their escape from individuals inside of our department,” she 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.
Officials initially reported 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 later found in various parts of New Orleans, authorities said.
One of the escapees, Myles, was captured after deputies found him hiding under a car at a hotel parking garage, the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office said. He ran away when troopers tried to make contact with him but 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 after a Crime Stoppers tip, the sheriff’s office said 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.
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 offering an increased reward up to $10,000 per escapee for tips leading to their arrest. Crime Stoppers is offering another $5,000 reward for each apprehension. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is also offering an additional $5,000 reward.
“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.
The inmates started yanking on a cell’s sliding door to pull it off track, and around 12:20 a.m., they were able to break open the door, the sheriff said. 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 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 used for supplies and leaping toward a road behind the building, Hutson said. 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, the sheriff said. The New Orleans Police Department was also notified around the same time. Meanwhile, 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.”
The security breach happened on the first floor of the facility, where 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 jail to ensure 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 jail 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 any staff members are responsible, they will be held accountable “both administratively and criminally,” the sheriff said.
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,” said the NOLA Ready alert that was texted to residents Friday afternoon.
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.
“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.
The district attorney said he will send his own investigators and will “work with whoever we have to pull in” on the probe. “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, Devon Sayers and Susannah Cullinane contributed to this report.
