New Orleans inmates stage daring prison break

Ten inmates made a run for it across a busy highway after making a hole behind in a cellblock toilet.

Transcript

01:05I've talked about those locks since I got into office.

01:08I wrote a letter to the consent decree judge, to the city council and everybody else who

01:12would listen.

01:13And every time I go to budget, I say the exact same thing.

01:16There are deficiencies in these facilities that cause public safety concerns.

01:22That's why the millage was so important.

01:25The detainees began yanking on a cell to pull it off track.

01:29That was around 1223 AM.

01:32They were able to break open a door.

01:35There was a corrections monitoring technician in the pod module.

01:41They were still able to exit the jail about one on one AM after breaching a wall behind

01:47a toilet in the jail.

01:49And based on video surveillance, they were seeing exiting a door on the docks where we

01:54normally bring in supplies, scaling a wall and running across the interstate shortly thereafter.

02:02We have indication that these detainees received assistance in their escape from individuals

02:06inside of our department.

02:09And the escape was discovered during a routine headcount at 8.30 AM this morning.

02:14I want to be really clear.

02:15This is a public safety issue and we all need to continue to work together to solve it to

02:21get these folks back in custody.

02:23And we are doing that.

02:25All of our energy at OPSO is going towards getting these folks back into custody and finding

02:30out exactly what happened.

02:32We do acknowledge there is no way people can get out of this facility without there being

02:37some type of lapse in security.

02:40There's no way.

02:41It's almost impossible, not completely, but almost impossible for anybody to get out of

02:45this facility without help from the outside.

02:50We intend to find out exactly what happened.