# Two prisoners escape using tactis similar to Escape from Alcatraz. I predict a movie very soon. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 7, 2015, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858 "2015-06-07T03:27:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858/1 "2015-06-07T03:27:00Z")
No one had ever escaped from maximum-security portion of the prison since it was built in 1865. Until this weekend. 😛 History was made that I think will be remembered just like the Escape from Alcatraz. I know these two are dangerous felons. Convicted murders. But, its hard not to admire such ingenuity and determination. The indomitable power of the human spirit should never be under estimated. Quite similar to the famous escape from Alcatraz. Dummies in the bed to fool the head count. Tools used to cut through obstacles. The Alcatraz guys put up canvas to hide what they were doing on top of a cell block. The warden was told it was because of painting the cellblocks. 😉 Its unlikely these two can melt away into society and are never heard from again. Much like the cons from Alcatraz. But damn, that would cement the legend. Wouldn’t it? Just vanish without a trace. I do hope they don’t injure anybody while they are free. They are considered very dangerous. So, who will be cast to play them in the movie? Theres no doubt in my mind one is already being pitched in Hollywood. > **[Manhunt on after convicted killers escape from prison](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/murderers-richard-matt-david-sweat-escape-new-york-prison/)** > > Two convicted murderers escape from maximum-security prison near Canadian border in upstate New York > **[Two convicted murderers escape maximum-security prison in New York](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3113860/Convicted-murders-escape-maximum-security-prison-upstate-New-York-using-power-tools-series-tunnels.html)** > > David Sweat (left), 34, and Richard Matt (right), 48, escaped the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York between 10.30pm Friday and 5.30am Saturday. > [@](#): > > Matt and Sweat arranged objects in their beds to make it look ‘like people were sleeping … with these sweatshirt hoodies on,’ Cuomo said. > > The pair had cells next to each other and had acquired power tools, which they used to cut through the steel walls of their cells, authorities said. > > They then followed a catwalk ‘down an elaborate maze of pipes into tunnels and exited a series of tunnels at the manhole cover,’ the governor said. > > ‘It was elaborate, it was sophisticated,’ he added. ‘It involved drilling through steel walls, steel pipes.’ ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858/2 "2015-06-07T03:34:31Z")
Jason Statham for Sweat, Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira for Matt. ETA: damn, they’re even about the right heights! ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858/3 "2015-06-07T03:40:20Z")
A newer reference is _The Shawshank Redemption._ I should have mentioned that movie for the youngsters at the SDMB. Same display of ingenuity and determination to beat the system. Stick it to the Man. Hard not to root for these guys. DB Cooper may have died jumping from a plane that night, but theres never been any proof of it. He and the money vanished. He may be reading this post right now. He’ll be remembered for a long, long time… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858/4 "2015-06-07T04:39:05Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Same display of ingenuity and determination to beat the system. Stick it to the Man. Hard not to root for these guys. I prefer Richard Pryor’s take on the subject. He had an attitude similar to yours. But then he filmed a movie set in a prison and had a chance to meet some of the people who were serving prison sentences and get to know them. His response? [“Thank God we got penitentiaries”](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xc501v_richard-pryor-on-arizona-penitentia_shortfilms) ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858/5 "2015-06-07T05:03:01Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Stick it to the Man. Hard not to root for these guys. They already _did_ “stick it to the man.” One killed a deputy sheriff, shooting him 22 times. The other killed and dismembered a man in New York State and then stabbed another man to death during a robbery when he was hiding out in Mexico. But go ahead and root for them. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858/6 "2015-06-07T06:36:25Z")
They’ll be recaptured soon. There’s no place to hide in todays world full of surveillance cameras everywhere. Or someone will see them at Wendys and take a photo with their phone. It’ll be on Instagram and Twitter in seconds. People have mythologized bigger than life characters that do audacious things since even before Robin Hood and Jesse James. Bonnie & Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Dillinger got famous for their over the top exploits. These people are stone cold killers but their life stories are still very compelling. Sells a lot of newspapers as they used to say. Clint Eastwood even starred in the Escape from Alcatraz movie. I wouldn’t want to meet any of these people. I know how dangerous they are. Their bigger than life crimes and lives are still interesting. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858/7 "2015-06-07T06:59:24Z")
Betting how long it takes for them to be caught. 2 Weeks is my guess. As an aside ( **Little Nemo** , did you ever work at the prison in question?) ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858/8 "2015-06-07T07:03:29Z")
More information. They must have been slipping out of their cells for weeks to do this work and scouting a way through those service tunnels. Living as night shift workers and prisoners by day. We never had a prison break this elaborate since Alcatraz . > **[Two convicted murderers escape from New York max-security prison using power...](https://www.nydailynews.com/2015/06/07/two-convicted-murderers-escape-from-new-york-max-security-prison-using-power-tools-and-tunneling-leave-have-a-nice-day-note/)** > > In a sensational “Shawshank Redemption”-style prison break, a pair of cunning convicted murderers used power tools and tunnels to escape an upstate maximum-security penitentiary near th… > [@](#): > > Annucci said prison authorities are checking to see if any power tools were missing from contractors at the facility. > > Investigators were baffled at how the inmates developed such an intimate knowledge of the prison’s hidden infrastructure. > > “It may have been over a period of time,” Annucci said. “It may have been trial and error. We don’t know.” > [@](#): > > Wielding power tools, the inmates broke through the cells’ thick walls. > > They then scaled a 6-foot-high catwalk and navigated an elaborate maze of pipes into tunnels, cutting away at several spots. > > They finally emerged outside the prison’s 30-foot walls after climbing out of a manhole, officials said. > > “We went back and pieced together what they did,” Cuomo said. “It was elaborate. It was sophisticated. It encompassed drilling through steel walls and pipes, so this was not easily accomplished.” ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858/9 "2015-06-07T07:50:09Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858/10 "2015-06-07T07:50:57Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > A newer reference is _The Shawshank Redemption._ I should have mentioned that movie for the youngsters at the SDMB. Before _The Shawshank Redemption_ and _Escape From Alcatraz_ there was _[Le Trou](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054407/)_ (1960), which may have established the genre, right down to the dummies in bed to fool the headcount. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858/11 "2015-06-07T08:07:34Z")
Slideshow taken during Governor Cuomo’s tour of their escape route. They had to cut quite a few holes to reach freedom. [http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gov-cuomo-tours-correctional-facility-prison-break-gallery-1.2249211](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gov-cuomo-tours-correctional-facility-prison-break-gallery-1.2249211) Maybe they’ll send postcards to their prison buddies like Cool Hand Luke. 😉 He got recaptured later and eventually killed. Gaining freedom from this life at the end. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858/12 "2015-06-07T09:11:47Z")
Just to clarify, I appreciate the ingenuity of the planning and execution of the prison escape. The tenacity and desperation to find a way out of maximum security is incredible. My jaw dropped when I saw what they accomplished. Cutting multiple holes through steel and brick. Then navigating that maze to a manhole cover away from prison. People will be talking about this escape for decades to come just like Alcatraz. There’s still a lot of unanswered questions about where the tools came from. I do not in any way support them as criminals. They are convicted murderers and are very dangerous. I said that in my OP and am repeating it. The sooner they are locked back up the better. Preferably without access to power tools. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858/13 "2015-06-07T09:37:22Z")
Another historical reference is The Great Escape during WWII. POW’s spent months tunneling, making clothing and travel documents for a mass escape from Stalag Luft III. Most of the POW’s were recaptured and executed. It doesn’t change what they accomplished in those months of work and planning. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858/14 "2015-06-07T11:29:25Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > They already _did_ “stick it to the man.” One killed a deputy sheriff, shooting him 22 times. The other killed and dismembered a man in New York State and then stabbed another man to death during a robbery when he was hiding out in Mexico. Couple of real scamps, huh!? ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858/15 "2015-06-07T12:23:35Z")
Bonnie & Clyde killed a cop too. They are still part of America’s mythology lore. Books and movies are made about them. Primarily because of the star crossed lovers theme. I have no problem acknowledging something extraordinary and memorable done by criminals. What they did in this one instance and what crimes they’ve committed are two entirely separate things. I respect how they pulled off the prison break. I have no respect for the terrible murders they were convicted of committing. No different than [the Great Train Robbery in England](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Train_Robbery_%281963%29). A remarkable and memorable crime, but terrible too. Those criminals were brought to justice and so will these escaped prisoners from NY. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858/16 "2015-06-07T15:12:04Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > **Little Nemo** , did you ever work at the prison in question? Yes, back in the early eighties. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858/17 "2015-06-07T15:14:28Z")
Any speculation about how they acquired power tools? One article in the New York Times suggested they might have come from construction in the prison. But if one of the construction workers was missing tools, he/she should have said so. It seems a major fuck-up. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858/18 "2015-06-07T15:23:38Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > DB Cooper may have died jumping from a plane that night, but theres never been any proof of it. He and the money vanished. $5,520 of the money was[found on the banks of the Columbia River](http://articles.latimes.com/1986-05-22/news/mn-6995_1_hijacking) near Vancouver, WA by a 8 year-old boy in 1980. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858/19 "2015-06-07T15:42:08Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Yes, back in the early eighties. Then do you think its surprising that they could get power drills and manage to mask the noise? And dispose of the dirt? ---
**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858/20 "2015-06-07T15:51:52Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > DB Cooper may have died jumping from a plane that night, but theres never been any proof of it. He and the money vanished. > > > [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > > > $5,520 of the money was[found on the banks of the Columbia River](http://articles.latimes.com/1986-05-22/news/mn-6995_1_hijacking) near Vancouver, WA by a 8 year-old boy in 1980. And then I understand that the Mount St. Helens’ eruption basically buried in ash the likely drop-off area, destroying whatever evidence might have been there… [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-prisoners-escape-using-tactis-similar-to-escape-from-alcatraz-i-predict-a-movie-very-soon/721858.md?page=2)