Ten inmates escaped through a hole punched in the wall behind a toilet in the Orleans Parish jail and disappeared into the night on Friday. A maintenance worker, 33-year-old Sterling Williams, has been arrested for allegedly turning off the water to that cell before the jailbreak.
Williams is the first non-inmate charged in the case, New Orleans television station WWL reported.
According to court documents, Williams told investigators he shut off the water to a cell and helped facilitate the breach under threat from an inmate. He now faces ten felony counts of Principal to Simple Escape and one count of Malfeasance in Office.
Randy Sutton, author of the Amazon bestseller Rescuing 911 and national spokesman for Blue Lives Matter, says correction officials were, at best, derelict in their duties to guard the prisoners.
“There was one civilian who was on duty, who went out for lunch, leaving no one to guard these people. The corrections officers who should have been on duty were elsewhere and not guarding these inmates,” Sutton said.
But does the trail of inside help end with Williams?
“There is now conjecture that these inmates were aided in their escape by someone within the facility, meaning a corrections employee,” Sutton said.
Sutton says the investigation will also look into whether the absent prison guards were in on the escape.
“This is big stuff and this is very, very damaging for the law enforcement community down there.”
WWL reported Wednesday that new surveillance shows two of the inmates walking in the famed French Quarter. The video is timestamped just hours after their breakout. One of the two has since been taken into custody.
Sheriff stays on the job
Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson has suspended her reelection campaign but hasn’t resigned, NOLA.com reports.
Hutson told the city council Tuesday night that she takes “full accountability” for the escapes and acknowledged that the breakout was a "failure."
Sutton says that law enforcement corruption has been a problem in New Orleans and part of the reason is that corrections officials are understaffed and underpaid.
“They make about $21.00 an hour. You could go to McDonald's and get a job for that. These people are being given a great deal of autonomy and authority, and they're getting paid pennies.”
