2 out of 4 inmates who escaped through gap in US jail still at large

AMITE CITY, United States – Four men were able to escape from Tangipahoa Parish Jail in Louisiana this weekend because of a 20cm gap and a lack of oversight at the facility, the authorities said.

Two of the men were still at large as of the night of May 27, while the other two had been found hiding in a dumpster, the police said.

Mr Jimmy Travis, chief of operations for the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office, blamed structural issues and a lack of oversight by the jail staff in a news conference on May 27.

The four men escaped after they evaded correction officers during recreation time in the yard and hid out until darkness, according to a Facebook statement from Tangipahoa Parish sheriff Daniel Edwards.

The men escaped in pairs, Mr Travis said.

The first two – Avery Guidry, 19, and Travon Johnson, 21 – left the jail on May 25 by evading correctional officers and escaping through a 20cm gap under a wall before scaling two fences after dark.

The next day, two other inmates – Omarion Hookfin, 19, and Jamarcus Cyprian, 20 – copied that route for their escape.

The authorities were not aware that the men had escaped until a family member of one of the escapees called them on May 26, saying that the men had tried to seek refuge at a relative’s house, Mr Travis said.

He attributed the delayed awareness of the escapes to understaffing and a lack of oversight.

“If proper head counts had been conducted, we would have known about it immediately,” he said.

The staffing issues at the jail over the weekend are not unique for the state, which has one of the most overcrowded prison systems in the country.

In 2022, Louisiana corrections officials told lawmakers that state prisons and juvenile detention facilities were understaffed because of low wages and poor conditions.

The Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment in the morning of May 28.

Guidry and Johnson were back in jail as at May 27 after the authorities found them in a dumpster, Mr Travis said. Hookfin and Cyprian were still at large, officials said.

Johnson, Hookfin and Guidry were in jail after their arrests in connection with a 2022 homicide. Cyprian was in jail on charges of armed robbery and weapon charges, the sheriff’s office said.

Mr Travis said the wire in the yard had been weakened by corrosion, making it possible for people to break it open and create a small gap.

Once the inmates got through the gap, they were able to go down a wall where there was another gap of about 20cm.

“You wouldn’t think that 8 inches (20cm) is a lot, but a 150 pound (68kg) human being can get under it,” Mr Travis said.

He added that he believed that all four inmates used the same route out of the correctional facility.

“We had a defect in the security barrier,” Mr Travis told reporters. “We had another gap that should have been corrected.”

And, he added, there was not enough razor wire. He also indicated that not all the officers had received proper training.

“Sometimes, in our jobs, we become complacent until something like this happens,” Mr Travis said. He added: “It’s a failure. We had a failure within.” NYTIMES