New details of David Sweat escape: Were prison guards asleep on the job?
As he wandered the tunnels beneath Clinton Correctional Facility every night while guards slept, recaptured escapee David Sweat said he already felt free.
What The New York Times called among guards may have been the enabling factor in Mr. Sweat's 鈥� and his now-deceased partner in crime Richard Matt鈥檚 鈥� escape. Details Sweat revealed to investigators indicate prison staff regularly slept on the job, allowing Sweat to slip away into the tunnels every night to carve himself and Mr. Matt a way out of the prison, the Times reported.
A law enforcement officer in late June that investigators were looking into whether guards on the 鈥渉onor block鈥� where Sweat and Mr. Matt were housed would sleep during the night shift, leaving inmates unsupervised between the 11:30 p.m. and 5:30 a.m. head counts.
One dozen prison employees and executives were placed on administrative leave late last month, pending an investigation into potential shortcomings among prison staff that might have enabled the escape.
If it turns out officers were sleeping on the job, it would not be the first time a New York correctional facility has seen such a scandal, though it would be the most severe. In 2009, the a photo depicting an officer sleeping in a chair with her keys hanging from her belt. Next to her, an inmate posed flashing a 鈥減eace鈥� sign.
The photo, taken by another officer, came from Rikers Island, New York City鈥檚 main jail complex. The guard had been working at the facility for more than four years at the time of the incident, and was placed on 鈥渕odified duty鈥� once the photo came out, deputy commissioner Stephen Morello told the Post.
Then in April of this year, a video was released of a sleeping guard at Mifflin County Correctional Center in Lewistown, Pa. The woman who took the video was visiting her husband at the prison, and said she often saw the guard sleeping while he was supposed to be working,
The Mifflin County Commissioner Kevin Kodish said the officer was responsible for coordinating and overseeing family visits, and that while there was no history of similar problems at the prison, the incident was being investigated.
"Obviously it's a serious concern for us,鈥� Mr. Kodish told CBS at the time. 鈥淵ou never want to have an employee sleeping on the job."
Sweat is now being held in solitary confinement at Five Points Correctional Facility in Romulus, N.Y.
