Two convicted murderers used power tools to cut through steel and shimmied through a steam pipe to escape from a maximum-security prison near the Canadian border, leaving behind a taunting note urging authorities to "Have a nice day."
The elaborate escape Saturday from an upstate New York prison had hundreds of local, state and federal law enforcement officers searching through the night for one man imprisoned for killing a sheriff's deputy and another who dismembered his boss.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Richard Matt and David Sweat staged "a really elaborate, sophisticated operation" that ended at a manhole cover blocks away from the prison - and must have been overheard by someone.
"They were heard, they had to be heard," Cuomo told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Sunday.
The men had filled their beds inside the Clinton Correctional Facility with clothes to appear as though they were sleeping. On one pipe cut in the escape, investigators found a note with a crude Asian caricature along with the words, "Have a nice day."
Sweat, 34, is serving a sentence of life without parole after he was convicted of first-degree murder for killing a sheriff's deputy in Broome County, New York, on July 4, 2002. Matt, 48, is serving a sentence of 25 years to life for the kidnapping, dismemberment and killing of his former boss in 1997.
Steven Tarsia, brother of Deputy Kevin Tarsia, said finding out his brother's killer had escaped "turns your world upside-down all over again."
He said just the other day, he had been trying to remember the names of the men responsible for his brother's death, and "I couldn't remember their names.
"All of a sudden, I remember them again," he said.
Tarsia told The Associated Press on Sunday he couldn't imagine how the men could have gotten power tools and escaped without help, but "I don't know why anybody would help them."
These sound like the kinds of murders for which the death penalty might well be imposed in states that have it. If that penalty had been imposed in these cases and if it had been carried out in six years or less, as it should be in the typical case, New York would not have two killers on the loose with nothing to lose.
If they do kill someone else, what will you do about it, Governor Cuomo? Sentence them to life in prison and put them in maximum security? That's where they are going anyway, if you catch them. They now have a license to kill with no additional punishment possible.
Or maybe not. New York actually does have a capital punishment law. It only needs a procedural fix to take effect, and the Supreme Court has ruled that such procedural fixes can be retroactive.
The problem is that too few Republicans are willing to be like the Macedonians and call a spade a spade.
Life in prison should mean that the killer never leaves, but is the best argument for the death penalty really, "We have to kill these people because the people entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring they stay locked up might just be completely incompetent morons, as this case illustrates?"
I worked as a teacher in NYSDOCS for ten years. Some of this time was in maximum security and even their version of "Supermax" (although they claim it is not).
Yes, there are power tools in max prisons. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few scenarios of how this could have happened.
1) These guys were possibly in a vocational program or knew someone who was. They are taught how to use power tools but they are highly controlled (called Class A tools). The instructor is supposed to make sure these tools are all returned to the Class A locker in a caged room prior to dismissing students after class. As in all professions, some people are lazy and perhaps this was not done. Some people will also do anything to stay out of trouble, so the instructor may not have reported it to security (which would put the place in lockdown) and even smuggled in a replacement tool the next day.
2) Inmates also can work for maintenance. They walk around with a locked toolbox (alone) to necessary areas. The CO unlocks the box, the inmate does his work, the CO inspects the box, and locks it back up before the inmate leaves. The maintenance supervisor also checks that all tools are returned at the end of the shift. The same human failings of the vocational instructor apply here.
3) A staff member smuggled it in. This is not that hard to do as bag inspections of staff are rare. A sad and little known fact is that most contraband is brought in by staff.
I would add that this is only slightly less impressive than the escape from Alcatraz. This is one bada$$ facility, one of the most secure and remote in the system. NYS also has some of the most professional and trained security staff in the nation. It only proves how weak the "they will never leave prison" argument is. As I was told when I entered DOCS, "You spend 8 hours a day trying to keep them in but they have 24 hours a day to figure a way out."
6/7 @ 10:16 p.m.: Because Yahoo does not provide you with a recognizable user name, please adopt a "handle" and "sign" your comments in the text, so everyone can see which comments come from the same person.
Your comment contain two assumptions. One is that making a prison escape-proof is so easy that an escape establishes that the prison management is comprised of "completely incompetent morons." The second is that I claimed that this incident was the best argument for the death penalty.
Neither assumption is correct.
Unidentified user stated: "Life in prison should mean that the killer never leaves, but is the best argument for the death penalty really, "We have to kill these people because the people entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring they stay locked up might just be completely incompetent morons, as this case illustrates?""
First, it is ironic that the same ones fighting against the DP are also fighting against life sentences. Virtually no person who criticizes the DP volunteers that fact.
Second, that life sentences keep society safe is a fallacy. Inmates like these two, even if they never step out of prison again, often victimize staff and other inmates.
Third, your premise that the administration must be "completely incompetent morons" is absurd. I would point out that many of the privileges given that make escape very possible are those fought for in courts, again, by the same people who fight against the death penalty and life sentences. This is the first escape at this max facility since it opened in 1845. Those "morons" have a pretty good track record, IMO.
The updated article states that they have been doing renovations and that contractors are being interviewed. I suspect that is where the power tools came from, as there is less accountability. They bring in and out power tools daily, so someone coming in with two saws-all would not get much attention leaving with one (they drive their personal/company trucks into the facility). They would also have maps of pipe runs, etc. It still seems that a guard or guards had to be grossly negligent at the very least and may have helped in some way.