10 New Orleans Inmates Escape Jail Through Cell Wall Where Toilet Was Removed

The rectangular hole in the cell wall was just big enough for a person to squeeze through. Right next to it, a metal toilet and sink had been ripped from the wall. Above the hole, someone had scrawled a picture of a face with a tongue sticking out and taunting messages for Sheriff’s Office officials, saying it was all too “easy. LOL.”

Ten inmates, who may have had help from jail workers, broke out of a New Orleans jail early Friday, escaping through that hole in a cell wall, the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office said. The inmates were then seen on surveillance video leaving through a door on a loading dock at the jail, scaling a wall and running across an interstate, Sheriff Susan Hutson said.

The Louisiana State Police said on Friday that one of the escapees, Kendell Myles, had been arrested in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The Sheriff’s Office warned that the remaining escapees — including a convicted murderer — should be considered “armed and dangerous.”

“We have indications that these detainees received assistance in their escape from individuals inside of our department,” Sheriff Hutson said on Friday, adding that supervisors and lower-level staff members were working when the inmates escaped from the jail, called the Orleans Parish Justice Center, at around 1 a.m.A civilian employee of the sheriff’s office who was the only person monitoring security systems in the part of the jail where the escape occurred had left his station at the time to get food, an office spokeswoman said on Friday night. Three Sheriff’s Office employees have been suspended without pay, she added.

Officials said they were investigating multiple security failures. Although the jail was placed on lockdown at 10:30 p.m. the night before the escape, the inmates began tampering with a locked cell door at 12:23 a.m., ultimately breaking it open, the Sheriff’s Office said.

The office blamed “defective locks and doors” for the breach, and Sheriff Hutson said she had previously complained about the locks to a judge and to city officials.