Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill addresses Orleans Parish jailbreak

NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill says she has been working non-stop with District Attorney Jason Williams, the City Council, the State Supreme Court, Gov. Jeff Landry and Federal Judge Lance Africk.

She says her priority is to figure out what happened before the inmates hopped the wall and how they even made it to that point to begin with.

When asked whether or not the incident was a result of a consent decree violation, Murrill said that she was unable to address that at the moment.

“It is a continuous process and I don’t want to speak on all of those details while we have an open investigation into all of that,” Murrill said.

Murrill says for a deeper dive, Landry has issued an executive order for an audit of the jail by the Department of Corrections sometime this week.

“They’re going to look at the current situation. You know, one of the things that we’ve had conversations about with the sheriff are the doors, sliding doors, swinging doors, the locks, things like that, the fencing,” Murrill said.

She also addressed new legislation that would force jails housing adult offenders to immediately report all escapes, saying the idea is common sense.

“It shouldn’t take this to happen to have that kind of policy to be put into place, but if that’s what we need then we’ll do it,” Murrill said.

When asked if Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson should resign, Murrill said that’s not on her mind right now.

“I think we need to be focused on the task at hand: recover the individuals who are out there, make sure that public safety is being addressed and safety and security at the prison,” Murrill said.

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