By the time 10 detainees escaped the Orleans Parish jail in May, the doors and locks on holding cells across the facility were failing so frequently that maintenance workers were scrambling to fix them at a rate of around twice a day, records show.

“NONE OF THE DOOR(s) WANT TO CLOSE,” worker Stephen Carter wrote May 15 when he serviced the top level of pod 1C on the first floor, according to maintenance logs.

Just one day later, the escape happened on the same floor, a tier over.

Easily compromised sliding-cell doors were among the many security breaches that helped to facilitate the escape. They are used to house the jail’s general population on the first floor, even though the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office has since acknowledged the doors are the facility’s most prone to tamperi

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