Authorities are still searching for two inmates — one accused of killing four people — who were gone from a Philadelphia prison for nearly 19 hours before officials knew they were missing.
PHILADELPHIA — There were no corrections officers assigned specifically to watch the housing unit of a Philadelphia prison when two inmates escaped Sunday night, and no armed perimeter guards were on duty as the men broke through the prison’s fence, a correctional officers union official told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
When the prison is fully staffed, two corrections officers would be assigned to each housing unit. But with recent staffing shortages, the prison has regularly only had one officer assigned to housing units. When other officers don’t report to work, or the prison reaches critically low staffing levels, one officer might be assigned to monitor multiple units, Robinson said. That’s what happened the night the men escaped, he said.
Ameen Hurst, 18, and Nasir Grant, 24, escaped from the center, one of several prison facilities clustered together along State Road, around 8:30 p.m. Sunday by cutting a hole in a fence surrounding a recreation yard, the Philadelphia Department of Prisons said. City officials said they were investigating what protocols were not followed and how the counts did not turn up the missing inmates until the next day.
Barth said he didn’t have access to the staffing logbooks, but said monitors for the society had previously reported issues with reported falsifications in the recreation logbooks and in laundry logs. Multiple incarcerated people in different units described being forced to sign the recreational time logbooks and then were not given that time out of their cell. Those prisoners described guards saying their phone privileges would be taken away if they complained.
Philadelphia police said Hurst was arrested in March 2021. He’s accused of shooting and killing a man on Christmas Eve 2020, said Frank Vanore, Philadelphia police deputy commissioner of investigations. The other three shootings happened in March 2021.
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