Texas convict escape: Who gets the blame?

Feb 1, 2001 12:00 PM, Larry Anderson

The drama of seven convicts who escaped from a Texas maximum-security prison in December and allegedly killed a police officer on Christmas Eve has kept the country enthralled. It was a bizarre story - as well as a sad and tragic one. Its conclusion involved negotiations by a television anchorman leading to the surrender of the final two convicts on Jan. 24. Another convict had killed himself along the way.

Even as the drama was unfolding, tough questions emerged about how such an escape could happen. Not surprisingly, questions arose over prison security.

Specifically, a state report on the escape found the following:

- prison staff failed to report unsupervised inmates;

- guards failed to recognize inmates disguised as civilians; and

- security officers failed to respond adequately to a fire alarm (which had been triggered by prison employees who had escaped the hostage-takers).

The state report says inmates began the breakout armed with a small screwdriver, a handmade knife blade and an 11-inch rod. By the time they fled the Connally prison unit near Kenedy, Texas, they had taken an arsenal of weapons from guards they had disarmed. The gang overpowered 10 civilian workers, a guard and a supervisor in the shop where they worked. They stole work clothes, a pickup truck and firearms, and left a note saying: "You haven't heard the last of us yet."

Security professionals should not be surprised to hearthat human error was at the heart of the events in Texas - certainly human variables are difficult to manage in any security environment. And no security challenge is less forgiving than the maximum-security environment of prisons.

Attention to detail and constant watchfulness can help security managers overcome the vagaries of human error. Far from perfect, theses tools are only as effective as their execution is vigilant.

Usually it comes down to the quality of an individual employee, which brings up another form of fingerpointing that has emerged in connection with the Texas prison escape. There have been complaints since the drama began about guard pay and staff shortages at Texas' prison system. Veteran officers make slightly more than $28,000, well below the national average, while starting pay for a Texas prison guard is about $18,000. Unfortunately, in our industry, many of us know of people who are making less than that.

Columbus, Ohio - A 42-year-old man was arrested after he allegedly attempted to rob a bank that never has cash. According to ABCNews.com, the man walked into the loan-application only National City Bank, pulled out a note to the teller that read "Give me all your money - I have a gun." When the teller explained to the man that the bank did not carry cash, he insisted that all the bank drawers be opened. Once the robber realized that the bank had no cash on-hand, he ran out and drove away. He was arrested 40 minutes later by Columbus police. The robber has been identified as a former police officer.

Washington - Secret Service agents and the U.S. Capitol Police are scratching their heads after a man without proper clearance walked through security checkpoints during the presidential inauguration and shook hands with President George W. Bush, according to the Washington Post. The unarmed man's ability to walk through security checkpoints has baffled White House security officials since they were on the lookout for him. The man has been identified as the same person who performed a similar act during former President Bill Clinton's second inauguration. After shaking hands with the newly elected president, the man was spotted by officers, who removed him from the scene.

Ashland, Mass. - State and local police, as well medical technicians, are surprised that a woman believed to have committed suicide was still alive after being placed in a body bag. According to the Boston Globe, the 39-year-old woman was thought to be dead after she was discovered slumped in water-filled bathtub in her one-bedroom apartment. Local police and emergency medical technicians called the state medical examiners' office to describe the condition of the woman. They were told to place the woman in a body bag and take her to a funeral home. According to the newspaper, everyone believed she was dead until a funeral home worker heard the woman struggling for air while she was in the body bag. The worker unzipped the body bag and held the woman's mouth open to keep her air passages clear. By the time a second set of emergency technicians arrived, the woman was breathing.

Bogota, Columbia - To keep crime low in the capital city of Columbia, the mayor of Bogota has proposed that men should stay off the streets at night. According to Reuters, the mayor of the city believes that if the streets of the city were populated exclusively by women that the crime rate would plummet. The mayor wants to conduct an experimental one-night curfew under which all men in the city of seven million would be ordered off the street. Columbia is known as the kidnap capital of the world with more than 3,000 per year.

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