Fourth New Orleans jailbreak suspect caught as manhunt enters day five
The fourth of 10 men who broke out of New Orleans' jail was captured Monday, leaving authorities still searching for six as the manhunt for the escapees entered its fifth day Tuesday.
Early Friday, 10 men in custody at the Orleans Justice Center (OJC) – many awaiting trials or sentencing for violent charges, including murder – yanked open a cell door, slipped through a hole behind a toilet, scaled a barbed wire fence, scampered across a highway and fled into the dark.
Kendell Myles, 20; Robert Moody, 21; and Dkenan Dennis, 24, were all caught still within New Orleans hours later. Authorities did not arrest any additional escapers over the weekend before taking Gary Price, 21, into custody late Monday.
The public official in charge of the jail, Orleans parish sheriff Susan Hutson, has since said faulty locks and cell doors, along with well-documented staffing shortages at the jail, were among the key factors in the breakout. As the Associated Press has reported, just 10 days before the escape, Hutson's office asked for money to fix the locks and cell doors in question.
But other officials say Hutson – who oversees the control and custody of those detained at the OJC – is responsible for the security lapses which led to Friday's breakout at the jail, which for years has been subject to federal monitoring and a consent decree aimed at improving conditions there.
Notably, there are reportedly indications that those who escaped may have had help from inside Hutson's ranks. There are also indications that someone with access to power tools made the hole used for the escape; that there was a lack of monitoring of the cell pod where the escapers had been contained; and that law enforcement took seven hours before a routine headcount revealed to them that anyone had fled from the OJC.
Louisiana state representative Aimee Adatto Freeman, who represents much of New Orleans's uptown section, called on Hutson to resign amid multiple investigations into Friday's escape, saying: 'Rather than take accountability, she's pointed fingers elsewhere. Blaming funding is a deflection – not an excuse.'
Hutson is facing re-election in October. Three challengers hoping to unseat Hutson have said Friday's escape should be disqualifying for her, according to the local news station WVUE.
The AP contributed reporting
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
34 minutes ago
- The Independent
Watch: Protester interviewed after being tear gassed during LA riots goes viral
Watch the moment a protester who was hit with tear gas during the Los Angeles riots said it 'tasted like fascism'. Law enforcement in LA have been using 'less-lethal weapons' such as tear gas and rubber bullets to dispel demonstrators who gathered to protest immigration raids at the Metropolitan Detention Center on Friday (6 June). Speaking to CBS News on Saturday (7 June), a demonstrator in downtown LA said he 'tasted a little tear gas' which 'tasted like fascism', in a moment that has since gone viral on social media. The ongoing protests intensified after Donald Trump deployed over 2,000 National Guard troops to the city on Sunday (8 June), a move he defended as a 'great decision' which saved the city from being "obliterated".
Telegraph
41 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Trump: Gavin Newsom should be arrested over LA riots
California Governor Gavin Newsom should be arrested over the violence engulfing LA, Donald Trump has declared. On Sunday, Tom Homan, the president's border tsar, suggested Mr Newsom was at risk of being arrested if he thwarts ICE officers attempting to arrest illegal migrants in the state. 'I would do it if I were Tom,' Mr Trump said on Monday. Speaking about Mr Newsom, he continued: 'He's a nice guy, but he's grossly incompetent. Everybody knows.' 'The people that are causing the problem are professional agitators, they're insurrectionists. They're bad people, they should be in jail,' Mr Trump went on to state Mr Newsom has dared Mr Homan to make good on his threat telling MSNBC: 'Come and arrest me. Let's just get it over with, tough guy. I don't give a damn.' 'He's a tough guy. Why doesn't he do that? He knows where to find me,' Mr Newsom added. Masked protesters in Los Angeles smashed and torched self-driving electric cars during a third day of volatile demonstrations on Sunday sparked by immigration raids in the city. The violence may spill over into a fourth day. The Service Employees International Union, which has around two million members, has organised a rally for Monday afternoon after the arraignment of its Californian president, David Huerta, who was arrested on Friday while protesting. Mr Newsom said he planned to sue the Trump administration over the deployment of 2,000 national guard troops which he called 'an illegal act, an immoral act, an unconstitutional act'. Demonstrators protesting against federal immigration raids continued to clash with police who fired rubber bullets and tear gas while being hurled with bricks and stones. Several journalists were injured during the crackdown, including an Australian presenter who was shot in the leg while reporting from downtown. Ms Bass appeared at odds with the LAPD chief, who said the force was under-resourced and overwhelmed. 'He has received that support from the sheriff's department and from other police departments, and so I do not believe that he was describing a situation where we cannot get it under control here,' she told CNN. Mr Newsom's confrontation with the president is the latest in a string of disagreements he has shared with Mr Trump, who has nicknamed the governor 'Newscum'. The pair clashed earlier this year when Mr Trump blamed Mr Newsom for the California wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes and called for his resignation. Juan Ramón de la Fuente, the Mexican foreign affairs minister, said 42 Mexicans had been detained in the riots, four of which were already returned to Mexico. 'We do not agree with violent actions as a form of protest,' Claudia Sheinbaum, the Mexican president, said. 'Burning police cars appears to be more an act of provocation than of resistance. We condemn violence, no matter where it comes from. We call on the Mexican community to act pacifically and not allow itself to be provoked.' At least 56 people were arrested over the weekend including a person accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at an officer. Police declared all of downtown LA to be an unlawful assembly area on Sunday as officers geared up for another day of protests.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Sean 'Diddy' Combs' ex-girlfriend says she cried for three days after reading Cassie's lawsuit
Sean 'Diddy' Combs' recent ex-girlfriend told Combs that she cried for three days after reading R&B artist Casandra 'Cassie' Ventura's 2023 lawsuit against the music mogul, a case that described hundreds of drug-laced marathon sex sessions with Combs and other men as 'horrific encounters.' The woman, who is known in court by the pseudonym Jane, testified Monday that she felt like she was 'reading my own sexual trauma' as she read the lawsuit, which was settled within a day for $20 million. She read aloud in Manhattan federal court a text message that she sent Combs three days after the lawsuit was filed in November 2023. She said that she had been crying for three days and felt nauseated. She said three pages of the lawsuit addressing what Cassie referred to as 'freak-offs' and what Jane has called 'hotel nights' followed her experience with the Bad Boy Entertainment founder 'word for word, exactly my experience.' Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey raised the subject of the lawsuit as Jane testified for a third day about her experiences with Combs for over three years until his arrest last September. Cassie testified for four days earlier in the trial, saying she engaged in the weekly sexual performances as Combs mostly watched or filmed her sexual activities with male sex workers in sessions that often lasted for days. Cassie dated Combs for nearly 11 years, ending in 2018. Combs has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges that could put him in prison from 15 years to life if he is convicted. Prior to bringing up Cassie's lawsuit on Monday, Comey elicited from Jane that she had protested the way Combs was treating her in the weeks before Cassie sued. She read aloud for the jury hundreds of text messages that she had exchanged with Combs, including some in which she complained that he seemed to be forcing her into the sexual encounters by threatening to take away her Los Angeles home. He had begun paying for the residence months earlier. She pleaded with him to recognize the damage the sex marathons were doing to her, writing: 'I am not an animal.' Jane's testimony was expected to fill the bulk of the trial's fifth week, as prosecutors move closer to finishing the presentation of their evidence before the defense gets its turn. As in her previous two days on the stand last week, Jane became emotional and cried briefly on Monday, but was mostly composed as she discussed her experiences with a man she said she loved. She acknowledged that she had reviewed some of the sex sessions with prosecutors prior to beginning testimony last Thursday. Comey asked her what she saw on them. 'I saw me,' she responded, before adding: 'following a pattern.' She added that with the 'majority of these tapes it was like the same show over and over again.' Jane said that after she expressed her frustrations and desire to only have sexual relations with Combs, the verbal fights between them would sometimes be resolved when he would say all the things she wanted to hear and promise to spend time with her without a 'hotel night.' Then, she said, when she saw Cassie's lawsuit, 'I almost fainted.'
