ESCAPE FROM
NEWN YORK

e JARROD SHANAHAN
ESCAPE FROM
NEW YORK

JARROD SHANAHAN

Calling Their Own Plays

Amid the dramatic rise of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), a group
that had drawn influence from his shooout with NYPD cops, Antho-
ny “Kimu" White sat behind bars in city custody, held on $250,000 bail
for attempted murder. In October of 1972, when White was held at the
Tombs, a comrade inside named Ronald Johnson received a new pair of
size-twelve sneakers from two female visicors. Sewn into the soles were
w0 hacksaw blades. Eleven days later, Johnson, Whice, and five other
prisoners undertook the first escape the Tombs had scen in over thircy
years. In preparation, the men had sawed their way out of their housing
area and covered the displaced bars with a table. Just after the 6:15am,
head count, the group sprang inco action. They slipped through the small
‘opening, crecping thirty feet across a gangplank overlaying a disused area
still wanting of repair since the rebellion [a year prior], before scaling a
sixteen-foot wall to 2 small window, and once reaching it, sawing off s
bars. The men then unfurled a rope made of bedsheets, down which they
climbed forty fect o the street below.

The entire operation took ten minutes at the most. At 6:25, an em:
ployee of the Criminal Coure Building spoted one of the prisoners de
scending the rope and sounded the alarm. Citing no evidence, DOC
Commissioner Benjamin Malcolm and Correction Officers' Benevolent
Association (COBA) President Leo Zeferetti took turns blaming the s
cape on the “liberal” policies of Board of Correction (BOC)-sponsored
volunceer initiatives (Malcolm) chat, in bringing civilians onto the jail
floor, had “allowed everyone and their brother to come and go as they
wane” (Zeferert). Only later was the source of the hacksaws revealed as a
routine visic."
Upon his premature release, White connceted with Assata Shakur,
Twymon Meyers, Zayd Shakur, Melvin Kearney, and other BLA cad
re whose activity revolved around bank robberics. In carly 1973, White
perished in 2 hail of police gunfire alongside his comrade Woody Green.
Before the year was out, Meyers and Zayd Shakur would also be dead,
felled by police bullets in dramatic shooouts, and both Kearney and As-
sata Shakur would be in custody. Meyers’ demise was particularly grisly.
NYPD and FBI agencs surrounded him on the strect, riddling his body
with eighty bullets. As he lay dead, a cop stood over him, firing a single
shot inco his head, as if to kill him sccond time. NYPD subscquently
held a rally celebrating his death outside the Forty-Fourth Precinct in the
Brons, while Police Commissioner Donald E. Cawley declared NYPD
had *broken the back of the BLA™

That same year, BLA cadre Sha Sha Brown was extradited to New York
City from St. Louis, where he had been arrested after a shootout with
police. In St. Louis, Brown had been sentenced to twenty-five to lfe for
the shootout, and was alleged to have planned a foiled jailbreak. Wanted
in New York for the exccutions of NYPD cops Rocco Laurie and Grego-
ey Foster, Brown was held at the Brooklyn House of Detention (BHD).
There, he once again hatched a plan for his premature deparcure. In July, 2
sophisticated escape plan wellinco ics final stages was discovered by BHD
guards conducting a surprise shakedown. Reminiscent of White escape
from the Tombs, Brown, his cellmate, and two prisoners in an adjacent
cell had used carbonite hacksaw blades to saw their way out of their own
cells and inco the guard carwalk that ringed the floor, thus placing only
one more set of bars—and a fifty-five foot climb down a rope they had
fashioned from bedsheets—becween themselves and freedom.”

Two months later, Brown was transported to Kings County Hospital
for an X-ray after he complained insistently of stomach pains. In order
for Brown to change into his hospital gown, he was uncuffed and shown
into a thee-square-foot changing booth with no room for cither of the
two guards escorting him. Brown changed inco the gown and received
the X-ray: I6slikely he was thinking all the while of the curious design of
the changing booth: cight feet high, leaving a four-foot gap between the
back wall and the ceiling, and fronted with a curcain chat extended all
the way to the loor. As the guards waited for Brown to change back into

]
his clothing, he hopped onco the booth's bench, scaled the wall and hic
the ground running toward an exit cighteen fect away. Hearing the bench
clatter beneath Brown's feet, the guards took off after him. They were, as
Malcolm later testificd, no match for Brown. Based on an informant’s
tip to NYPD, Brown was recaptured a weck later in a BLA safe house in
Bushwick, Brooklyn, along with multiple other fugiives.*

Though speed and ingenuity had abetted his daring escape, Brown had
also been assisted by simple negligence typical of a department stretched
t0 the breaking point. After discussing the escape threat posed by BLA
detainces at multiple mectings with NYPD, reviewing the escape record
of Brown, and learninga map of Kings County Hospital was caprured in a
raid of another alleged BLA safe house, DOC had enacted a protocol for
monitoring the transfer of BLA prisoners like Brown. It wasn't followed.
A defensive Malcolm insisted the accounts of NYPD warnings about
Brown had come from “low-level policemen” and there was no forewarn-
ing of an escape. Less explicable were the words “escape risk” and “mur.
derer” stamped in red on Brown's prisoner identification card, which had
made the trip o Kings County with him. Morcover, DOC denicd the
map had anything o do with the escape. Ultimately, however, Malcolm
conceded: “Any time a Black Liberation Army group wants to release a
fellow Black Liberation Army inmate from a hospital they can do it. The
Department is planning to establish procedures to make this impossible
but che procedures have not yet been created.”

Malcolm took the rare scep of suspending the guards involved, though
they had by all accounts done litdle wrong. Brown's case came amid a rash
of embarrassing escapes, prompring Malcolm to testify “he was personally
“fed up’ with reports showing that procedures had broken down without
pointingatindividuals who are at faulc”—or, perhaps more precisely with
those that pointed to him. In al likelihood, the overtaxed DOC simply
did not have the capacity to live up to the city's tough talk about BLA and
other militant prisoners. One investigator dubbed DOC’s uniform scaff
“Keystone guards.” in reference to the comically incpt Keystone Cops of
the silent film era. While jail administrators plead poverty and underca-
pacity in the best of times, during this period the New York City system
was truly overwhelmed, not just by the throngs of people swept off the
streets by NYPD and consigned to jail by the courts, but by the spiric

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of belligerence and militancy that now drove a eritical mass of DOC’s
captives

Before flccing Kings County Hospital, Brown supposedly told guards
at BHD, “I will escape, you cant stop me.” In December of 1973, Brown
had been transferred to the Tombs, along with five other men assumed
to be BLA members. At dawn on December 27, 2 cop patrolling the arca
spotted two men and two women loitering around an open manhole
ousside the facility. They included Bernice Jones, a prominent New York
Panther and widow of Twymon Meyers, and BLA cadre Ashanti Alston.
Jones was alleged to be carrying a list of BLA members in the Tombs,
information about their upcoming court appearances, and numerous doc-
uments about Brown. Less than two months later, and just wecks after a
judge dismissed che final charges against the quartet due to lack of cvi
dence, another group of four—two men and two women, also including
Alston—handeuffed a guard in the Tombs visiting area at gunpoint and
attempted to cut through the wall with an acetylene torch. Their plan
failed only when the torch ran out of oxygen and they had to beat a hasty
retrear

The cadre fled with two guards guns and asec ofkeys, the latter of which
they mailed to the New York Times along with a caunting lecter thanking
DOC for its “cooperation;” thanks to which “you only lost your guns”
This was news to the public; an embarrassed DOC, awash in charges of
“Keystone guards” had not disclosed the missing guns, downplaying the
wholeincident. Deputy Commissioner Jack Birnbaum claimed DOC did
not mention the missing guns “because nobody asked us.” As Public AF.
fairs director Al Castro later complained, despite DOC's efforts to move
BLA cadre around the il system and thwart escape plots, “the trouble is
that they can pretty well call cheir own plays”

In August of 1974, with Brown back at BHD, the faciliy’s brand-new
metal detector thwarted an attempr to smuggle hacksaw blades, alleged:
ly intended for him, via the same mechanism that had succeeded at the
Tombs: a pair of shoes. The following weck, Brown, Kearney; and a third
BLA cadre, Pedro Monges, fled a transport van recurning them from
court to BHD, afer the latterstole a key. The unshackled men were able o
subdue multiple guards and had begun to climb a thircy-foor fence when
Brown was shot in the shoulder by a guard and dropped to the ground

s
Kearney surrendered, but Monges was able to breach the fence, making
i short discance before a passing police patrol unit drew their guns and
recaptured him. The following May, Kearney and Monges sawed an cigh-
teen-by-cleven-inch hole in the back wall of their cell, smashed through
a plate glass window; and shimmicd through an air vent,all to undertake
the 128-foot descent to the ground below. Monges made it safely outside
the jil gates but was quickly captured by chance by an off-duty cop. Kear
ney was even less fortunate. As he descended the makeshift rope, it broke
suddenly, and he fellto his death. DOC later alleged that Brown and an-
other BLA cadre, Roderick Pearson, were scen running back to their cells
shortly after the rope snapped.*

In carly 1975 a maximum-sccurity block at Rikers Island's House of
Detention for Men (HDM), home to cleven accused BLA cadre, was the
scene of another dramatic escape attemp, the failure of which was sure-
Iy not duc o lack of imagination or daring. It began when BLA mem.
ber Herman Bell, on his sccond erial for the shooting of NYPD officers
Piagencini and Jones, asked a guard to use the phone. When the guard
appeared with the phone, DOC officials later claimed, Bell pushed him
againsta metal-grated wall and held a sharpened stick to his neck. Anoth.
er prisoner grabbed the guard’s keys, and the duo tied him up and placed
him in a nearby cell. Next, they lured another guard into the cellblock by
complaining of broken television, and he too was tied up and placed
in a cell. Fourceen prisoners, including the cleven BLA cadre, held the
block unchallenged for almost an hour while attempting to saw through a
barred window with hacksaw blades.

The escape was foiled when a passing guard noticed the men sawing
Evidently deciding on the furility of the cffort—and apparently secing no
use in the cellblock occupation tactic as an end i itself—the prisoners
surrendered their hostages and returned to their cells. NYPD claimed the
escape was part of an elaborate seaborne rescue in which armed BLA cad
e st sail in three rafis from the Tiffany Sereet Pier in the Bronx, at least
one clad in scuba gear, headed for the facility. After receivinga report of
the Rorilla, the harbor patrol had discovered an abandoned raft, which
the cops claimed contained ammunition and a map of HDM. The East
River current, it scemed, had foiled their mission. Asked aca BOC meet
ing how hacksaw blades got into HDM, Director of Operations D'Elia

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replicd that a broken window had recently been discovered in a visiting
booth. Secking, as DOC and COBA offcials often do, to minimize the
role guards play in smuggling contraband inco its facilities, D'Elia “de-
clared that these inmates are clever people who can estimate when they
will not be scarched and thus will be able to sneak contraband into the
institution™”

It is worth emphasizing tha the black and brown revolutionaries of
this period by no means held a monopoly on ambitious attemprs to fiee
themselves from DOC custody. In fact, some of the civilians proved just
as adept at hatching bold escapes as the professional revolutionaries. In
1975, prisoner Joscph James reported to Kings County Hospial for a
dental appointment and ducked into the bathroom, where a coconspira
tor had left him a gun. James opened fire in the crowded hospical, killing
guard George Motchan and injuring another guard and a patient. Shortly
before Bell’s foiled escape, a group of prisoners at HDM discovered that
the liquid in the facility’s Xerox machine, when ignited, could melc the
glass on windows to the outside, allowing it t be noisclessly rupeured
usinga ragmounted on a stick. Working quickly and quietly,the four were
able to create a big enough hole to climb through undetected. Gerting
off the island, however, proved more difficult, and they were soon recap
cured

In the month of May 1974 alone, at least fourteen prisoners with no
established connection to BLA escaped from three different DOC facil
ities, including Rikers. Among them were four prisoners at BHD who
accomplished what had cluded Brown: sawing through the bars of an
eighth-floor dayroom, they successfully descended a rope made of blan
kets and twine. Recaptured prisoners later claimed to have obtained the
saw blades from a guard for fifty dollars, as part of an elaborate smuggling
‘operation. Thisled to the indictment of four civilians and five guards, and
asccurity crackdown tha caralyzed a hunger strike at BHD, A mere four
days after this BHD escape, nine prisoners at Rikers Island pried open
a window and fled into the night. One was apprchended on the island,
but three swam to an anchored tugboat and, wiclding a knife, obliged the
seven-man crew to drop them off on che Tiffany Strect Pier in the Bronsx.
They were captured shortly thereafier, clad in yellow seafarer outfics pil
fered from the vessel. Later that month, a prisoner at Branch Queens

o
sawed his way through the bars, climbed down forty feer, then traversed a
ewventy-foot wall to freedom.” [..]

Patron Saint of Prison Breaks

Looking back on 1977, BOC recalled rucfully that the year “will be re-
membered as a year of many escapes from Rikers Island; cotaling chir
ty-five successes, o say nothing of attempts. These pushed the total of es-
capes from DOC custody since 1974 to 153. A steady stream of hacksaws
winnowed its way into Rikers jails enabling multiple exoduses,including
from the maximum-securicy area of HDM reserved for prisoners deemed
escape risks. According to DOC, in one case blades were smuggled into
the jail concealed inside fully functional ink pens, which family members
had given prisoners in court. Purportedly, these pens were capable of pass-
inga basic contraband test, by which the prisoner was made to uncap the
pen and write with it, to prove it contained an ink cartridge. For reasons
that will soon be clear, however,itis sory to be taken with a grain of salc.

As DOC facilities crumbled and teemed, prisoners increasingly s
caped in large groups, sometimes as many as cight at a time, by cutting
their way out of HDM and other facilitis. As in the carly 19705, these
escapes demonstrated not only familiar patterns, but also fearured a re
curring cast of prisoners who at once rejected the authority of DOC and
undertook ingenious attempts to proactively free themselves from its cus-
tody. Their efforts challenged not just the power of the jail system, but the
authority derived from policicians, like Mayor Koch, who based their fi-
cal austerity on their supposed ablity to kecp lawbreakers behind bars."

In 1977 three adolescents locked up at the Adolescent Remand and
Detention Center broke fiee, erept to the guards' parking lor, comman-
deered a guard’ car, and successfully drove straighe off the island, past
muliple checkpoints, to the frecdom of suburban Queens. In response:
0 this embarrassing breach of security, DOC hastily claimed the young
men had undertaken a sophisticated—and highly cinematic—jailbreak,
complete with meticulous timing of guards' comings and goings, and even
counterfeit badges to get past the checkpoints. It was a compelling story.
But chere was one problem.

“There was no evidence to sustain that story.” BOC concluded. “What

"
was known at the time the Department was being quoted [in the press,
about its imaginative version of the escape], i that the inmates took ad-

vantage of two inattentive correction officers who simply weren't doing
their jobs” Three years later, a wio of prisoners pulled offa carbon copy”
of this escape, leaving a hapless guard’ car ac John E. Kennedy Airport
for investigarors to discover the following day. Less successful but no less
bold were a group of twenty-four prisoncrs who took over a transport bus
moving them between Rikers facilities and attempred to drive it offthe s

land. Their plot was foiled when the driver crashed the bus. Foregoing the
bridge altogether, a quartet of prisoners inflated trash bags into makeshife
rafts, greasing themselves and the bags with Vasline o stay afloat. The
bags proved insufficient to the ask and burst, but one of the four none

theless made it across. Subsequently,a pair of Rikers prisoners concealed
themselves ina truck delivering sale bread to the Flushing Meadows Zoo.
The duo disappearance was only detccted by the driver, whom they star-

ded by hopping off the back of the ruck on Grand Central Parkway and
vanishingino the ficedom of the Queens night.'*

Rikers was not the only place DOC prisoners deemed worthy of s
cape. In 1980, famed horse trainer and Upper Eas Side socialite named
Howard “Buddy” Jacobson, held at the Brooklyn House of Detention
following a murder conviction, reccived a visic in the facility’s counsel
ro0m from a man purporting to be his lawyer. During this visit, che men
swapped clothing and identification. Jacobson then tapped on the door,
announced the visic had ended, flashed his supposed lawyer’s credentials,
and strode out the front gate of BHD to freedom, leaving the ltter, appar.
endly well-compensated for the ruse, to face charges for abetting escape.

In carly 1982, 2 group of six prisoners in the south wing of the sixth
floor of the Bronx House of Detention overpowered the two guards
oversecing their cellblock, bound them, and placed them in the dayroom
while attempting to saw through a window with hacksaw blades. One
guard managed to set off his emergency alarm before being overpowered,
but when the control room called, a prisoner answered, posing as a guard,
and reported a false alarm. A third guard appeared shortly thereafier;
welcomed inside by a prisoner dressed in a captured guards uniform, he
was also taken hostage. The plot was at last detected when the guards on
duty did not respond to calls for a coffee delivery: The tour commander

2
responded in haste, Rlanked by 2 small squadron of guards who foreswore
ot gear, rushing to the scene so quickly they forgot the keys to the tier's
gate. Once inside, they foughe the prisoners with their clubs, viciously
beating the rebels in a manner BOC found “completely disproportionate
o the circumstances” There were no consequences for the guards.™

This wasnt the most spectacular escape attemp that year—or even
that month. Less than two weeks later, ten prisoners in ransic at the
Brooklyn Supreme Court escaped leg irons and handcuffs to overpower
three guards, one of whom provided them with a gun that a flecing pris-
oner used to carjack a motorist, shooting the motorist in the process. In a
scathing 1982 report to the mayor and city council, BOC concluded thar,
“despite the image of prisoners furtively digging tunnels or quictly sawing
through bars to escape, prisoners are more likely to escape by recognizing
and taking advantage of lax or poorly trained personnel and inadequate
or loosely enforced security procedures.” For his part, the studious Ward
atcributed the rash of escapes o several factors. The ercction of the Rik
ers Island Bridge, he reasoncd, had slowed the East River current; the ex-
tension of the LaGuardia Airport runway provided an artainable goal for
swimmers; and an increase in detainces meant an increase in smuggling,
since they had more visits than sentenced prisoners. Morcover, technol-
ogy had advanced, bequeathing better jailbreak tools such as smaller and
more powerful saw blades. DOCs Joseph D'Elia was markedly more de-
fensive, telling BOC, “An escape is made on an officer, not on a system.™*

One escape of this storied period stands out so specracularly that it
prompred artist David Wojnarowicz to immortalize its protagonise as
“William Morales, Patron of Prison Breaks” Parc of the diminished, bu
by no means vanquished, revolutionary underground, William Guiller-
mo Morales manufactured bombs for the Pucrto Rican Armed Forces
of National Liberation (FALN), who fought for an autonomous Puerto
Rico. Morales and his comrades in FALN had operated under the radar
for years, detonating over one hundred explosive devices throughout the
mid to late 19705, without a single member being arrested. On July 12,
1978, bomb Morales was manufacturing in a house not far from Rikers
Island detonated prematurely. The blast destroyed Morales’ hands and
mutilated his face. Badly burned, maimed, bleeding profuscly, missing
one eye, and vircually blind in the other, Morales managed nonetheless to

5
flush a number of incriminating FALN documents down the toilet before:
the police arrived. He then filled the apartment with gas, hoping to blow
himself up along with the cops. Instead, Morales was captured. Despite:
his grave condition, he managed shortly thereafter to tell a NYPD detec
tive, from beneath layers of bandages, “Fuck you. Fuck yourself™™

In April of 1979, after Morales had been held for over a year at the
prison ward of Bellevue Hospital, he was convicted of weapons charges
and sentenced to twenty-nine to cighty-nine years behind bars. Prior to
sentencing, Morales remarked, “They're not going to hold me forever”
One month later, this prediction was borne out. Morales managed to get
hold of a pair of fourten-inch wire cutters, which NYPD suspected his
atcorney smuggled to him, though she was never formally charged. With
the help of a fellow prisoner, Morales subsequently affied these cutters
around his waist using shoelaces, so that they dangled beneath his bath-
robe. Over the course of the next two nights, despite having lost his hands
and much of hissight, Morales cut a small hole in the metal grating cover.
inghis window: He then punched through the outside screen, produced a
rope made of bandages, and began his descent from his third-floor room,
some forty fect in the air

‘Waiting on the ground below were more than 2 dozen cadre from the
remnanes of the Black Liberation Army and the Weather Underground
The bandage rope apparenly failed, sending Morales tumbling to an air
conditioner unit that broke his fall, and then onto the grass below. His
comrades whisked him away to a New Jersey safe house, from which he
later made his way o Mexico, then Cuba, where he lives today as a free
man. A mortified and enraged Commissioner Ciuros, ridiculed for the
escape of a handless man from DOC custody, pursued a slew of admin
istrative charges against sixteen guards and captains responsible for every
conceivable falure leading to the escape. The story became less about the
tenacity of the enduring revolutionary underground and more about the
latest fiasco for DOC’ Keystone guards.””

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Notes

Beyan Buccough, Days of Rage: Ameria’s Radicl Underground, the FBL, and th Ferorin
Ageof Reseltionary Vislence (Nev York: Penguin, 2015), 192 Lacy Fosburg, 7 Saw Thle
Way Out of th Tombs New York Ties, Octaber 24, 1972 Glenn Fowler,“Two Accused.
of Smagging Savs to Tombs Escapers” New Tork Tomes,Febeuay 7. 1973,

Borough, Daysof Rage, 210-17, 237-42: Judich Cummings, 2 of 3 Black ‘Army’ Suspects
e Held without Bail? New Yok Tims Septembes 19, 1975: MichaelT.Kaufovan,“Worn-
2 Captueed i Shoor-Out Called SoulofBlck Milcnts” New York Times, May 3, 1975
Michael T. Kaufiman, “Slaying of One of the List Black Liberaton Asmy Leaders Sl ¢
Large Ended a 7-Month Mashune” New Yok Tmes, Noverber 16,1973 Saiya Buklari
“Lest We Forgein The W Bfore (New Yok Femis Pcss, 2010) 150-1

Glenn Fowler, “Brown 1+ Recsprured with Four i Raid an Brooklyn Tenemenc New York
Times, October 4,1973; Alfed . Clark, JailEscape I Fofled, Ofcial Repore” New Yok
TmesJuly 25,1975

Bosrdof Corsection (BOC Mecting Minutes 10/2/75,7-9; owlee, "Beown IsRecaprueed™

BOC Mecting Minutes 10/2/73,7-9, quoted text i paraphrase i the mecting s
Fred Feset,"Beame Orders sn Invesigaton o ik, Coverng Escape nd Beibe Charges”
New York Times Maech 7 1974

Pranay Gupte, “Suspect in Slying of 2 Offces Fles” New Yok Tomes, Seprsmber 25,
1973; Daul L. Montgomery, 4 Scized Near Mashole in Alleged Plot to Fre Black Army
Frends in Tombs” New Yok Times, Decembet 28,1973 Feret,"Bestme Ordersan Inves-
tigaion”s Dan Besger, aprive Naton (Chapel Hill Uniersity of North Caroling Dres,
2014) 24907753 am Alleged Bl o Fece 6 Torbs Relesed by Jadge? New Yook Tis,
January 24,1974

“Times Rceives ey Set Stolen i Tomis Besk In” New ork Tmes May 7, 1974 Max L.
Seigel, "4 Ocbers inked o Peison Escape.” New York Times May 28,1975

“New X.ray Machine Foils Blde: Smagglinga Jail” New York Times, Auguse7, 1975 Alfeed.
E. Clark, “Braoklyn Escape by 3 1s Thwarted” New Yok Times, August 16, 1974 Robere
MEG. Thomss, . “Fecing Drsoner Falls o Death, 2d Inne Captared n Brooklyn? New
Yok Times May 26, 1975; Scel "4 OthersLinked o Prison Ecape”

BOC Meting Minutes 3/3/75, 7; Robers D. MeFadden, "Rikers Escape Ancenpt Ress-
sesed s Strongee” New Yok Tnes,Febrsaey 22,1975: David Bied, “Dolce Invstigace Ap-
parent Ecape Autempt by Black Liberatonists” New York Tis February 18, 1975

Alfanso A Narvacs, "Pisoner Shoots 2 Guaeds and Paiene and Flesfrom Kings Couney
Hospital” New York Ties,Septembes 10, 1975: BOC Meetng Minutes 3/3/75,6.
©

©w

"

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Rolbere D. MeFadden “15-Stte Alem s for 2 Fugiivesfrom Brooky's Houseof De-
tention” New York Tines May 5, 1974; Robee HasleyIjuced Fugitive Held in Brooklyn,
New York Times, May 6, 1974; Robert Hanley,"Rikers . Fugiives Commandecred a Tug?
New Yok Times, May 7, 1974 NochasiclSheppard Jr. “Caprased Inmares Report Paying.
Officr for S New Yok Tomes, May 8, 1974 Wolfaag Sason, “Prisonce Escapes rom.
Quesns ik New Yok Times, May 26, 1974

BOC, Awnual Report 1977 (New York: BOC, 1970), 25t BOC, Al Report 1950 (New
York: BOC, 1980), 11-12:Joseph L Jacobson, “Escape of Eght lnnates from Maximurs
Sceuriy Section, Block 1B of the NY.C. House of Detenion for Men—Septembe 24,
19797 Edwaed Koch Papers, Bo 112, Folder 5, LaGuardi Wagne Archives a LaGusedia
Communiy Collsge (LWA).

BOC, 1977, 25-6: BOC Meeting Minutes3/5/80, 1-2 BOC, Reort 1 the Mayer and the
ity Connil o Safey and Secrsty in N Yok iy sl (New York: BOC, 1982), 8.

Benjamin Ward, "Escape of Howsed Buddy Jacobson? June 17, 1980, Koch Dapers, Box
112, Folder 9, LWA: BOC, Sty and Sccurty n New York Cty’s s, 34

BOC, Sty and Scuriy i New York City’s i, v—v, 2: Bevjamin Waed,“Rikers and's
Future” New Yok Tomes, Api 19, 1980; BOC, Dt Meeting Minutes 2122177 2, qoted
ext it paraphess i the mesting misutes.

Buscough, Dys of Rage, 4614
“Morales s Sntenced to 29-Yese Minimars on Weapons Chiarges? New York Times, April

21,1979:Boroughs, Days fRage 4714, 544-5; Robere MeG. Thoms e 16 in Coection
Post Accusd of Negligencein scspe by Morales” New ork Tume,Decermber 17, 1979

w®
Looking back on 1977, BOC recalled ruefully that
the year “will be remembered as a year of many
escapes from Rikers Island” totaling thirty-five
successes, to say nothing of attempts. These
pushed the total of escapes from DOC custody
since 1974 to 153

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