A massive prison escape in New Orleans has turned into a multistate manhunt. In the meantime, state and federal authorities are investigating how this could have happened. And wondering why the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office reacted so slowly. 

The early Friday morning escape involved 10 inmates who carved a hole through a cell wall, darted across Interstate 10, and vanished into the night.

Prison Escape in New Orleans Details

The jailbreak occurred shortly after midnight on Friday, when a corrections technician reportedly stepped away from monitoring cameras to get food.

 During this lapse, inmates inside Cell Delta 1006 began yanking on the faulty door until it gave way. They then maneuvered through the facility, slipped behind a metal toilet, and escaped through a hole in the wall.

In a bold move, the inmates left a mocking message above the escape hole: “To Easy LoL.”

The escape wasn’t discovered until a routine head count at 8:30 a.m., over eight hours after it happened. Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson later admitted, “There is no way people can get out of this facility without there being some type of lapse in security.”

The inmates had prepared well for the breakout. They brought blankets to protect themselves from barbed wire, scaled a fence, sprinted across the interstate, and disappeared into a neighborhood where they shed their prison clothes.

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Who Escaped and How?

By Tuesday 4 of the escapees have been captured. Those remaining still at-large are:

• Corey Boyd
• Jermaine Donald
• Derrick Groves
• Antoine Massey
• Leo Tate
• Lenton Vanburen

They face serious charges, including murder, aggravated assault with a firearm, and false imprisonment with a weapon.

Security and Infrastructure Failures

District Attorney Jason Williams lambasted the breakdowns in oversight: “The idea that they are saying they had to go back and look at footage is ridiculous. Those monitors are there to be observed in real time.”

Sheriff Hutson blamed the escape in part on defective cell locks and ongoing infrastructure issues. She revealed that she'd requested $5.2 million to fix the locks and that her department was operating with only 60% of the staff needed.

Chief of Corrections Jay Mallett admitted that the facility was not suitable for high-security inmates. “We’ve identified that we have a large number of high-security individuals in a minimum custody facility.”

Delayed Public Notification

Critics are particularly furious that the public was not informed of the escape until hours later. “If it happened at 1 a.m., they should have been notified at 1:30,” said DA Williams. He also expressed fear for his staff and himself, given his past prosecution of one of the escapees, Derrick Groves.

“These lawyers got out of town this weekend with their families out of fear of retribution and retaliation,” he said.

A Multistate Manhunt and Rewards

Authorities initially believed 11 inmates had escaped but corrected the number to 10. So far, four men have been recaptured: Dkenan Dennis, Kendell Myles, Robert Moody, and Gary Price.

The manhunt now includes over 200 officers from the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office, Louisiana State Police, FBI, and U.S. Marshals. The FBI is offering a $10,000 reward for each fugitive, with Crime Stoppers and ATF adding $5,000 each per capture.

Read more from CNN, AP News, and Louisiana State Police.