The whole Michael Burham saga is done and over. He is safely locked up in the Erie County Prison. The prison officials spoke to news media.
https://www.erienewsnow.com/story/49206647/erie-county-prison-warden-on-housing-high-profile-inmate-michael-burham
I'm glad that this is behind us.
At the start of this debacle, the Warren County Commissioners were supportive of the staff. One of them said that the whole escape took only 10 seconds. I sincerely doubt that. I mean, the man jumped up on a piece of excercise equipment. He then pushed through a chain link cover that created the top of the rooftop cage, pushed through another fence where concrete had crumbled. All this with an armload of bedsheets that had been (presumably) already tied into a rope. (If they hadn't been, that alone would have taken quite a bit of time.) The statement implied that the prison was crowded and this is why prisoners were exercising at 11:00 PM.
This escape became a very big deal, with multiple state and federal agencies involved for 9 days, with a huge expenditure of equipment and overtime, with world wide coverage. That 9 hour standoff next to us? The information that has been made public says that they do not believe the man in the videos was Michael Burham after all. The story that he had accessed the laundry room to get out of his prison clothes? He was wearing his prison uniform when he was found. He had simply turned it inside out. So what even happened there? (And no, I haven't seen the man who believes he is a ninja since I've been home and I've been looking for him.)
I think that it became pretty obvious fairly on that this was not going to be something swept under the rug, and 6 days ago, this was released.
https://www.goerie.com/story/news/crime/2023/07/17/michael-c-burham-after-arrest-questions-remain-how-inmate-escaped-warren-county-pa-prison-manhunt/70419497007/
An apology was offered to the community.
I wish the investigation was being handled by people outside the community. There is already a kneejerk response by a lot of people who feel that any criticism of the prison staff or law enforcement is a slap in the face of the brave men and women who serve in any way as part of that 'Thin Blue Line'. I don't see it that way. It does need to be investigated, and thoroughly. DA Greene, recused himself and handed off to the state AG, and I am glad.
https://k9ballistics.com/collections/chew-proof?gclid=Cj0KCQjw8NilBhDOARIsAHzpbLBa0wOD1CofzhYJ8ZEubYZN6r8MgTaggHvzfZaNjhuSjhx0jYP65xIaAjONEALw_wcB
I think that it is also interesting that he used the words 'negligent' and 'complacent'. It's the first time that I've heard these things said out loud by anyone in a position of authority. This is a prison designed for non-violent criminals with sentences of two years or less. Michael Burham should have automatically triggered a higher level of security. The prison also was not over crowded. 87 prisoners contained in a 139 bed facility. I see no reason why the exercise area could not have been placed off limits during the hours of darkness, especially since they were aware that a broken beam provided an opening in the roof of the facility.
I will be interested to hear what the final findings are.
We have a sheriff here that people are scared to do things in his county.
ReplyDelete. A few years ago a man was on the run, he had raped a little girl and killed her, had crimes against other woman and children. They finally caught him in a wooded area, and he had a gun, he shot at the deputies, and they fired back. After 28 bullets in him they stopped. The sheriff was asks why they fired so many shots, he said we run out of bullets and had to stop. He said you come to my county and hurt a child, you will be caught.
I do not think this is heroic. Police often believe that they are the arbitors of right and wrong. They aren't. Their job is to apprehend the criminal and let the legal system do its job.
DeleteElliek - that man got what he deserved.
ReplyDeleteAs for Burham - that dog was a good judge of character! 10 seconds to escape -for heaven's sake - what a pathetic excuse for negligence!
I agree that the man needed to be apprehended and face punishment. Once a suspect is down, it is over. The police take him in to custody. There is no reason to keep shooting until your gun is empty. The police are not the judges of right and wrong. Their job is investigating and apprehending.
DeleteAt the end of the video, you'll hear from the people who own Tucker. https://youtu.be/pt-6_efHyBo
I tend to agree, if it had been my 5-year-old granddaughter or my daughter he raped, tortured and killed I think I could have pulled that trigger a few times.
DeleteThere's a big difference between a personal response and a professional response. Personal responses are generally emotional responses. You could be forgiven for that. It's not the same. Lest you think that I'm talking out my ***, I can assure you that the topic hits far closer to home than I will discuss on this blog.
DeleteThank you, I am talking from some close topics at home also. My family is ok now but it takes time to heal and not fall back to thoughts and things of a few years ago.
DeleteThere is little point for a prisoner to attempt escape if their sentence is less than two years. They will risk a much longer term if/once they are caught. He was clearly not a great thinker about his future and so it seems on the face of it he was misclassified. And then it just got a whole lot worse.
ReplyDeleteMy son is a prankster. He texted me and said that Michael Burham had posted bail. I said that he couldn't have. I mean, really. My fingers went crazy googling that. In the end, he admitted that he was pranking me. His bail is $1M, but it has been revoked because he was determined to be a flight risk. It was noted that he had escaped from his previous prison, and also that he had said that he was going to do it again if he had a chance. Nope. Not a great thinker about his future, alright.
DeleteI agree that this requires scrutiny. You always have to analyze something like this. An investigation is not necessarily a witch hunt. It’s just trying to get to the bottom of things and also prevent a future episode.
ReplyDeletePrecisely. Someone really decried in a public forum that our town received world wide attention for the wrong reasons, and went on at great length about how great our town is. Others chimed in to decry the 'haters'. I agree that our town is nice, but our town has problems. Talking about the problem does not make me a hater.
DeleteI have an acquaintance who works for a maximum security prison down the road. Any little thing out of the ordinary that occurs results in lots of scrutiny, reprimands, reassignments and firings according to him. He was a pretty happy man the day he retired, happier than most people I see who retire. He was always so stressed that he would mess up someday and his mistake might hurt someone else. I can't imagine working in that sort of environment on a daily basis.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that high security necessarily and automatically equals stress. Hopefully something 'out of the ordinary' wasn't happening on a daily basis. Even a weekly basis. You have rules and you follow them. If there is an 'event', there needs to be investigation and, if necessary, changes made. This is a minimum security prison. The guards sit in a room watching the prisoners via video feed. It was not adequate for a violent offender, especially one headed to the exercise area on the roof with known damage to the cage roof, especially carrying 10 sheets tied together at o'dark thirty at night. That should have triggered a response.
ReplyDeleteGood to hear that this guy has been captured. Sure , there had to be some negligence go on in this case.
ReplyDeleteWhew! Thanks for this post. I was worried that you two were the couple in the golf cart that saw the guy deep in your backyard. When I saw the video of the couple talking with the media, I was pretty sure it wasn't you. Glad the bad guy is in jail, at least for a while. Linda in Kansas
ReplyDeleteThe couple that found him got a $22,000 reward. They said their dog was getting a very special treat.
DeleteYes, a thorough investigation is certainly warfantes---by outside agencies. There seem to have been many failures in security, and Burham obviously made good use of them.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read a report of this guy's escape before he was recaptured, I felt like the sheriffs were already making excuses that were not rational in the least about how he had escaped and why it was taking so long to recapture him. I said to myself, "Those guys are so embarrassed."
ReplyDeleteI'd been keeping track of this in the news. I'm so relieved for you that he was finally apprehended.
ReplyDelete