In what seemed to be a scene from the movie Shawshank Redemption, two convicted killers used power tools and tunnels to escape prison this past Saturday night. Prison officials at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, NY announced the escape of Richard Matt, 48, and David Sweat, 34. The men were noticed missing after a bed check by corrections officers of their adjoining cells.
When guards examined the beds they realized that the two men had constructed dummies with hoodies and fooled the previous guards making their security rounds. An immediate lockdown and search for the prisoners began and it was realized this was no ordinary escape. Matt and Sweat somehow where able to acquire power tools, tunneled out of their cells and made their way to the plumbing of the prison. Somehow, the two men cut away massive sections of pipe and were able to crawl through the large pipes and exit a sewer cover outside the prisons’ 30-foot wall. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo stated to the media, “We went back and pieced together what they did… It was elaborate. It was sophisticated. It encompassed drilling through steel walls and pipes, so this was not easily accomplished.”
Adding to the elaborate escape was a message left on one of the pipes that read “Have a Nice Day,” with a hand-drawn racist caricature of an Asian man. Authorities are now engaged in a massive manhunt for the two prisoners who are considered extremely dangerous.
