Seriously? Inmates escaped through the roof, undetected?

http://www.centralillinoisnewscenter.com/news/local/70325557.html

About 2:40 p.m. on Tuesday, authorities apprehended 28–year–old Aaron Cook. He was found under a pile of boxes on Spitznagel Street in Peoria wearing sweatpants.. not a jail uniform. The other inmate is still at large. According to the Peoria County Sheriff, 44–year–old James Fuller and 28–year–old Aaron Cook escaped through the roof of the jail after creating a hole in the ceiling using homemade instruments. The sheriff says it was likely a hole they created over a period of time as they had to dig through two layers of cinder blocks. The jail pod where they were held was single person cells, so the sheriff says it is possible one inmate hid in another cell just before lockdown. "We're interviewing all the inmates that were on that pod, plus we've called back into work everyone that worked second shift yesterday, third shift last night and day shift today," said Sheriff McCoy. Authorities say the inmates used a number of bed sheets tied together to get down from the roof. Aaron Cook, the man captured in Peoria, was being held on charges of theft, obstructing justice and aggravated battery of a child. James Fuller, who is still at large, has been jailed here since March of 2008 and was arrested on multiple counts of rape and home invasion. A man fitting Fuller's description allegedly broke into a home on Tracey Street in Peoria and stole a green Toyota highlander with Colorado license plates 591–BXA.

This jail is only 8 miles from my house, and the criminal that is still at large is "bad, bad news" according to my friend who works in the state crime lab.

Something about it just seems 'off' to me...

Well, having lived in Peoria, I can say I'm not too surprised something like this could happen. I have seen firsthand how little the guards pay attention there.

sobe_death wrote: Well, having lived in Peoria, I can say I'm not too surprised something like this could happen. I have seen firsthand how little the guards pay attention there.

Agreed, but it still seems odd, even for Peoria.

Sounds like a good ol' fashioned break out. I wonder if a file concealed inside a cake was involved.

sobe_death wrote: Well, having lived in Peoria, I can say I'm not too surprised something like this could happen. I have seen firsthand how little the guards pay attention there.

may I ask how you have such "inside" information?

We had/have(?) a similar situation here in the county jail in Memphis. Only in the most famous case the same criminal escaped TWICE by squeezing through a gap in an outside wall of the building. The county jail is downtown, so once you get out of the building you just melt into the crowd. Security to get INTO the building is fairly tight....but no one seems to pay attention to those leaving.

These guys had to file a hole in the ceiling of one of their cells that had to go through 2 layers of cinder block, get enough bedsheets to get down from the second floor safely and got off of prison property undetected.

Oh, and one guy hid in the other's cell (solitary pod) for lock down so they could get out. That is why it seems weird to me.

However, as was previously mentioned, Peoria County kinda sucks.

Digging through a concrete wall or ceiling with some crudely improvised tool doesn't seem all that unusual, but being able to "buddy up" overnight in "solitary" cells does smell fishy.

Stay tuned; I'll bet there's more to this story..

I know these guys are in jail for a reason, and they probably need to stay there, but I always applaud the people that can come up with a plan and execute it. If they could only channel that energy in a better direction. Cutting through two layers of cinder block had to be enough of a job all by itself. If I ever need to be locked up, I know which jail I want to be in.

Morbid wrote: However, as was previously mentioned, Peoria County kinda sucks.

I have a good friend who went to Bradley. He refers to it as the armpit of the state.

I don't know, Peoria isn't that bad. There's a bunch of active autocrossers from over there & they hold several events each year(they lost their main site several years ago).

petegossett wrote: I don't know, Peoria isn't that bad. There's a bunch of active autocrossers from over there & they hold several events each year(they lost their main site several years ago).

I've only been there once, and actually really liked it. Hopefully I'll get there next year for the autocrosses, a little closer for me than Rantoul.

Morbid wrote: These guys had to file a hole in the ceiling of one of their cells that had to go through 2 layers of cinder block, get enough bedsheets to get down from the second floor safely and got off of prison property undetected. Oh, and one guy hid in the other's cell (solitary pod) for lock down so they could get out. That is why it seems weird to me. However, as was previously mentioned, Peoria County kinda sucks.

It's times like these when I'm glad I don't work corrections anymore. The state constantly slashes budgets and collapses posts on facilities, then goes bananas when there's a serious incident.

I'll be anxious to hear the outcome of an investigation, but I bet some poor CO gets scapegoated at the expense of the facility saving face.

aussiesmg wrote:

sobe_death wrote: Well, having lived in Peoria, I can say I'm not too surprised something like this could happen. I have seen firsthand how little the guards pay attention there.

may I ask how you have such "inside" information?

I spent a 15 hour stint there on a mistaken Identity incident. Peoria's finest thought I was somebody else they were looking for, thought my Georgia ID was a fake, and took me in for it. I was in holding for 3 hours, then they threw me in the back. Needless to say they were never reprimanded nor apologized when they realized their mistake.

mtn wrote:

petegossett wrote: I don't know, Peoria isn't that bad. There's a bunch of active autocrossers from over there & they hold several events each year(they lost their main site several years ago).

I've only been there once, and actually really liked it. Hopefully I'll get there next year for the autocrosses, a little closer for me than Rantoul.

I moved out back in March, but in '08 they only had one autocross in Peoria, and it was a last minute event at the CAT Mossville plant. All the rest were in Rantoul or somewhere else just as far.

sobe_death wrote:

mtn wrote:

petegossett wrote: I don't know, Peoria isn't that bad. There's a bunch of active autocrossers from over there & they hold several events each year(they lost their main site several years ago).

I've only been there once, and actually really liked it. Hopefully I'll get there next year for the autocrosses, a little closer for me than Rantoul.

I moved out back in March, but in '08 they only had one autocross in Peoria, and it was a last minute event at the CAT Mossville plant. All the rest were in Rantoul or somewhere else just as far.

Yep, this year there were 2 or 3 at Mossville CAT, I didn't make it to any, though. Rantoul/Champaign is a much more active area, and quite the drive from Pekin.

Both escaped inmates have now been caught.

There was a live interview with the county sheriff just before the second criminal was caught, and during that interview, he admitted that it would have taken the criminals several months to dig through the concrete blocks using the tools that were found in the cell.

It would seem that this would have been noticed at some point by a guard...

"It's our job to cheat, and their job to catch us."

~Smokey Yunick

http://www.centralillinoisnewscenter.com/news/local/80015317.html

Following a month-long investigation, six correctional officers are being disciplined after the escape of two Peoria County Jail inmates last month. Multimedia * Watch The Video In a statement issued by Sheriff Mike McCoy, the investigation has led to many procedural changes throughout the jail, including the manner in which inmates are assigned cells and the way they're accounted for during a shift change. McCoy says the six correctional officers reprimanded for the escape received anything from a letter in their file to suspension days.

Hmmmmm.

Perhaps they were on a mission from God.

Wally wrote: Perhaps they were on a mission from God.

I bet they've got S.C.M.O.D.S.

Red: [narrating] Andy Dufresne - who crawled through a river of E36 M3 and came out clean on the other side.

Red: [narrating] In 1966, Andy Dufresne escaped from Shawshank prison. All they found of him was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar of soap, and an old rock hammer, damn near worn down to the nub. I used to think it would take six-hundred years to tunnel under the wall with it. Old Andy did it in less than twenty. Oh, Andy loved geology. I guess it appealed to his meticulous nature. An ice age here, million years of mountain building there. Geology is the study of pressure and time. That's all it takes really, pressure, and time. That, and a big god-damned poster. Like I said, in prison a man will do anything to keep his mind occupied. It turns out Andy's favorite hobby was totin' his wall through the exercise yard, a handful at a time. I guess after Tommy was killed, he decided he had been here just about long enough. Andy did like he was told, buffed those shoes to a high mirror shine. The guard simply didn't notice. Neither did I... I mean, seriously, how often do you really look at a mans shoes? Andy crawled to freedom through five hundred yards of E36 M3 smelling foulness I can't even imagine, or maybe I just don't want to. Five hundred yards... that's the length of five football fields, just shy of half a mile.

However his math's off...

500 yds=1500 ft or (slightly) > 1/4 mile (1320 ft)

mel_horn wrote: However his math's off... 500 yds=1500 ft or (slightly) > 1/4 mile (1320 ft)

After you crawl through 1320 feet of E36 M3, get back to us and let us know how close to half of a mile it felt like