Today is a sad anniversary. It marks one year since the Gonzalo Lopez escape. Who is to blame? Lots of people are. What has been done to prevent this? I'd like to say much has been done but anybody that is honest will tell you that nothing has been done. We still remain short handed as ever and the politicians and Bryan Collier and Oscar Mendoza do not care. They do not care for the 5 lives lost. They do not care if a correctional officer is killed. This agency wonders why it remains understaffed. Well somebody that cared about the public's lives and our lives would be a nice place to start. We are more than a number by a Category I position. We are invisible to them.
Re: Gonzalo Lopez
Posted by Puddin N. Tane on May 17, 2023, 1:24 am, in reply to "Gonzalo Lopez"
Yes, it’s a sad anniversary. One that we all wish had never happened.
I think it was Albert Einstein that said “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome”. This agency never learns.
The Corasco siege occurred from July 24-August 3, of 1974. It was the longest prison siege in American history, at the time. Eight employees held hostage and two female employees killed. A “trusty” smuggled a firearm through that back gate and was never strip searched. Sound familiar, TDC?
The Martin Gurule death row escape occurred on Thanksgiving night, 1998. The boss working the wing never bothered to wake up sleeping inmates, that were covered head to toe, with blankets at count time. Let’s be friendly and let them sleep. Hacksaw blades were brought in from the bus barn. Once again inmates were not properly strip searched. Let’s be friendly and let these inmates go to the house without a strip search. Sound familiar, TDC? There were too many failures in that escape to list them all, but Gurule and six other death row inmates made it to the fence. Six of them laid down, when bosses started shooting. Gurule kept going over the fence and drowned in Harmon Creek. His body was found after a 7 day search.
On December 13, 2000, The “Texas Seven” escaped from the Connally Unit, in Kennedy Texas. Friendliness played a huge role. Let’s let these murdering thugs hang out in the maintenance shop, unsupervised, while we go to lunch. The thugs drove a state truck out the back gate. Let’s be friendly and not search the truck or ID the occupants. Sound familiar, TDC?
The “Texas Seven” inmates were then allowed to come up in an outside picket, where they promptly relieved the picket boss of his firearms. They ended up robbing a sporting goods store, in Irving, Texas. They murdered Irving policeman Aubrey Hawkins, while his mother and young son, finished up their meal at a restaurant, across the street. To top it off they killed the policeman on Christmas Eve.
November 30- Decades 2, 2009 inmate “Arcade Joseph Comeaux” escaped from a TDC van, while he was on a medical transport, from Estelle to Galveston. He wasn’t properly strip searched. He pointed a pistol at a boss on the van and demanded to be released. He escaped with the bosses guns and roamed around Houston for over a week.
The Gonzalo Lopez escape. This one was recent enough that everyone remembers it. Was he properly strip searched? No.
Aggravated friendliness and failure to properly strip search are the common denominators in ALL of our major incidents. Yes, there are other factors, like staff shortages and a piss poor classification process, tossed out disciplinary cases, along with other things that contribute to escapes and serious incidents.
The bottom line is TDC NEVER LEARNS! There will be other incidents in the future, because of friendliness and a failure to properly strip search. Sadly, it’s very probable that more innocent people will pay for the mistakes our agency makes.
Enough of my long winded rant. Be safe! Watch your back!