CINCINNATI — Questions about security measures at the Hamilton County Justice Center continue to swirl after four inmates escaped custody in the span of three weeks.
Patrick Thomas, 32, has not been captured after he tunneled through drywall and broke a window on the third floor of Talbert House, a secured treatment facility on Reading Road.
WCPO also obtained video of two inmates escaping the Hamilton County Justice Center in June. Security footage shows Melissa Cordell and George Bridewell escape while being booked into the jail.
Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey told WCPO the jail is experiencing problems "that every jail experiences."
"We manage 1,200 inmates. That's our current count today," McGuffey said. "We take in and release 90 to 80 inmates a day. That is a ton of movement.”
McGuffey says that movement is what led to their escapes. Both were able to blend in with released inmates while they waited to be processed into the jail.
No officer was in sight when Melissa Cordell waited to be booked into the jail on June 8. Video shows Cordell test to see if a half door is unlocked while on a phone call. When she realizes it is, she seizes her moment and gets into the property area.
McGuffey said a deputy enforcement officer should have been sitting near the property clerk, saying "she could've been taking a break, could've been taking paperwork somewhere, lots of reasons why she walked away."
Cordell hides behind a pole and wall.
"This person right here can't see her," McGuffey said. "She dips down and takes off the outer inmate top, leaves here with her tank top on that she came in with."
After one clerk gives property back to inmates leaving jail, Cordell takes off her inmate garb and heads out with them.
"She was in close enough proximity to them walking out the door to get their property that the officer thought she was a part of this group," McGuffey said.
Less than two weeks later on June 20, Bridewell waits to be arraigned in a holding tank. In the same area, a deputy is getting people out of a cell to be released.
"(The deputy) has a list with him. He's calling out names, he has those people out," McGuffey said. "This gentlemen here, he says, 'Wait a minute you're not on the list.' He tells him to go back in, tells this officer to shut the door."
The door to the cell locks with Bridewell inside, but McGuffey said public defenders ask to open the cell door to gather information on each inmate's case. The public defenders are occupied as Bridewell walks out of the open cell.
He moved into the area where inmates were being processed to leave, walking with the group to the property area. Finally, he's able to walk out with everyone.
"You'll notice the officer looks at (Bridewell)," McGuffey said. "There's so many people coming and going being released, it's hard to keep track of who's who."
Both Cordell and Bridewell were captured, but their easy escapes do lead to questions. McGuffey discussed security concerns at the jail Tuesday, saying they have fixed how officers track who's coming in and out as well as securing doors that were open for the two in custody.
“We’re confident moving forward that we’re fixing things. When it comes to our attention, it’s going to be fixed, and we’re paying attention," McGuffey said. "We’ll make the changes we need to make. I’m confident our personnel is on alert and understands what happened and is fixing it.”
One of the changes includes completely refiguring the intake area.
"We’re changing that area to create more plexiglass barriers," McGuffey said. "We’ll build it around the corner. We’ll install a lock, an electronic key fob lock that nobody else can access. We'll lock the half door that goes into the process area. We’ll do a number of things to secure that.”
In March, the WCPO 9 I-Team uncovered that inmates were also punching and burning holes into cell windows with the use of community tablets.
“The tablets have a lithium battery in them and some of the prisoners were able to get that battery out,” McGuffey said. “We were told these were tamper-proof which they appeared to be.”
McGuffey said the tablets were introduced last summer for several reasons including monitored communication for inmates, and a way for inmates to handle daily needs like medical visits and commissary lists. The tablets were also used to give inmates something to do during the pandemic when there was no access to outside recreation.
“It would be cruel and unusual for people who are incarcerated not to be able to communicate in some ways with people on the outside who are family friends, significant others, children things like that," McGuffey said.
The sheriff said they did not expect the inmates to use the tablets for vandalism.
“We learned that unless you assign these to an actual person and their name actually pops up on this tablet we don’t have much oversight and we cant keep track of them as well so we fixed that,” said McGuffey. “When we introduce something like this, that's exactly what we did. We monitored what’s happening and how can we improve and we are constantly doing that as people who are incarcerated take the opportunity to find ways to create havoc to damage things we continue to work to make sure it cant happen.”
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