New Orleans Sherrifs Office
Audio By Carbonatix
We now have some video of the New Orleans prison escape. On Friday, ten inmates, including four alleged killers, escaped a New Orleans jail, fleeing through a hole behind a toilet and scaling a wall while the guard assigned to watch them was out getting food.
NEW: Photo shows hole through which inmates escaped at New Orleans jail.
"To easy lol," says one of the messages left on the wall. 10 inmates are still at large. pic.twitter.com/lAc4lynIhw
— BNO News Live (@BNODesk) May 16, 2025
OPSO Sheriffs compiled a timeline of events leading up to the escape.
Via NewsNation
“At approximately 12:23 a.m., the detainees began tampering with a locked cell door, ultimately breaking it open,” OPSO Sheriff Susan Hutson told reporters.
“At 1:19 AM, they were observed scaling the fence along I-10, between our building and the currently under-construction Phase Three facility, using blankets to avoid being cut by the barbed wire,” Phipps Jr. explained. “Those individuals subsequently ran across the westbound and eastbound lanes of I-10, and then entered the neighborhood.”
‘The escape wasn’t discovered until a routine headcount around 8:30 a.m., giving the fugitives more than seven hours of freedom before the alarm was raised,’ Major Silas Phipps Jr. said.
One surveillance video shows the prisoners’ escape.
Breaking News: We now have the video of the 10 inmates escaping Orleans Parish Jail this morning. This video is wild like it’s out of a movie.
One of those inmates was captured in the French Quarter, 9 are still on the run.
According to the Orleans Parish Sheriff:
12:23 am… pic.twitter.com/zMZs53mGwc— Cassie Schirm (@Cassiewdsu) May 16, 2025
Investigators believe the prison break may have been an inside job.
“We have an indication that these detainees received assistance in their escape from individuals inside our department,” Hutson said. “There were supervisors on duty. There were lower-level folks on duty, and they all had a job to do, and we’re going to find out exactly what happened.”
Update: Two men have been captured, but eight still remain on the loose.