Eleven guards who were fired after a daring D.C. Jail escape have filed grievances to keep their jobs.
The guards have asked a D.C. administrative hearing officer for an extension to gather documents that they think will prove their contentions that they were unfairly fired.
Two of the group — supervisor Herbert Douglass and an as-yet unnamed woman — are at the center of a continuing grand jury probe of the escape, sources told The Examiner.
Prosecutors want to know if Douglas and the woman were the guards who helped Joseph Leaks and Ricardo Jones as they broke out a window in the warden’s office and scampered down an awning to walk off the jail’s grounds — wearing the partial uniforms of jail guards.
A June 28 internal review of the escape blamed “a corrupt staff and the negligence of correctional employees” and described a jail run by its inmates: At one stage, Leaks reportedly told a guard to leave a room because something was about to happen.
Lou Cannon, president of the D.C. Fraternal Order of Police, said that none of the guards have been charged with a crime and that they are all entitled to due process.
“You’ve basically found them guilty without due process,” Cannon said, referring to jail officials. “That’s something we don’t even do to the people who are in D.C. Jail.”
The escapes outraged residents in theupscale Hill East neighborhood, who weren’t notified of the break and who said that the jail siren didn’t sound.
Leaks and Jones — who were awaiting trial in a homicide when they escaped — were recaptured a day later. They remain in custody and are being shuffled around to various jails in the suburbs.
