How a New Orleans jail escape exposed major security failures

Ten inmates escaped the Orleans Parish Justice Center in one of the biggest jailbreaks in Louisiana history, enabled by failures that had previously been cited by authorities.

The path to freedom began behind a toilet.

After midnight on May 16, inmates at the New Orleans city jail forced open the door of a first-floor cell and crammed inside. At the back, inmates had wrenched a metal bathroom fixture from the wall, exposing a narrow hole where steel bars were sawed off. On the other side was a walkway leading to a loading dock.

The timing was perfect. A jail worker had cut off water to the cell, which allowed the inmates to dislodge the toilet without a telltale flood. There was no deputy patrolling the housing area as there should have been, and a civilian employee whose job was to monitor inmates’ movements had reportedly stepped away for food.

The group assembled in Cell 6 included men who had been held in the Orleans Justice Center for months or years, many of them accused of terrible crimes. One had been convicted in October of killing two people during a 2018 Mardi Gras celebration and was waiting for a likely sentence of life in prison. Two others were awaiting trial on murder charges, another two on attempted murder. A couple of them had previously escaped other lockups.

Now, they were pulling off one of the biggest jailbreaks in Louisiana history, an audacious feat that exploited long-documented failures in the local criminal justice system, including the jail’s inability to properly supervise high-risk inmates. The escape spread anxiety through one of America’s most beloved tourist cities, opening new wounds for victims’ relatives and forcing some into hiding. And it prompted finger-pointing among a Republican governor and local Democratic officials, with much of the heat falling on Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson, who was elected in 2021 as a progressive reformer but has been criticized for falling short on federally mandated improvements at the jail, including regular security checks.