‘To Easy LoL’ – New Orleans jail break may have been inside job

Ten prisoners, several of them facing murder charges, have escaped from a New Orleans jail and may have had help from staff inside the facility, authorities say.

The inmates are thought to have fled around midnight, and were discovered missing during a headcount at 08:30 local time (13:30 GMT) at the Orleans Parish Jail on Friday morning. One of the 10 has been recaptured.

“There’s no way for anyone to get out of this facility without help,” Sheriff Susan Huston said during a news conference.

The sheriff’s office posted photos showing how the inmates escaped, which included taunting messages apparently left by the escapees. “To Easy LoL,” one message read.

One inmate was apprehended in New Orleans’ French Quarter, police said. The other nine are considered “armed and dangerous”, the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office said, adding that a manhunt was continuing.

Louisiana State Police identified one escapee as Kendall Myles in central New Orleans through facial recognition technology after he was filmed on a surveillance camera.

He tried to flee on foot before being apprehended hiding underneath a car in a parking garage, police said.

He was transported back to the Orleans Parish Jail, and “is being rebooked at the facility for a new charge of Simple Escape”, it said in a statement.

The New Orleans Police Department has released the names and photographs of the other escapees in a post on X.

The Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office initially said 11 prisoners had escaped from the facility, but the number was revised to 10 later on Friday.

Sheriff Hutson said the inmates yanked the sliding door from their jail cell off its tracks at 00:23 in the early hours of Friday morning (05:23 GMT).

They exited the jail about half an hour later after ripping a toilet from the wall and breaking metal bars around a hole in the wall that was used for piping.

They then climbed down a wall and ran across a highway, the sheriff said.

The sheriff’s office released images of the hole in the wall, which shows what the piping fixture looked like before the toilet was ripped out. The photos note that “there are clean cuts” on the metal bars, which facilitated their escape.

The photos also show messages on the wall apparently left behind by the inmates.

The photos show messages scrawled in pen, including “To Easy LoL” with an arrow pointing to the hole. It also shows a smiley face with its tongue out and another message, partially smudged, that appears to tell officers to catch the inmates when they can.

New Orleans police chief Anne Kirkpatrick said the prisoner escape was an “urgent and serious situation” and encouraged the public to report any suspicious activity.

Victims of some of the escapees have been notified, she said, adding that several are facing murder and other violent charges.

The inmates probably had help, Supt Kirkpatrick said, and are unlikely to still be wearing prison uniforms, warning that anyone who helped the inmates would be charged.

The FBI and US Marshals have also joined local police in the search, she added.

The Orleans Parish Jail is located near the centre of the city, around 3 km (2 miles) from the city’s famous French Quarter.