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Corrections officers at Windsor’s South West Detention Centre thwarted a daring jailbreak attempt earlier this month after an inmate allegedly disguised himself with one of their uniforms and headed for the exit, sources tell the Windsor Star.
“The ministry is aware of an attempted escape by an inmate at the South West Detention Centre,” Brent Ross, a spokesperson for the Ministry of the Solicitor General, told the Windsor Star.
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“This incident is under ministry investigation and was reported to the Windsor police. As this incident is under investigation, we cannot provide further comment.”
The Windsor Police Service said it is investigating and charges are pending, but did not provide further details of the ongoing probe.
The Ministry of the Attorney General also did not provide further details about the escape attempt or ensuing investigation.
Katrina DiGiacinto, president of OPSEU Local 135, the union representing corrections workers at South West Detention Centre, also would not comment on the specifics of the incident, citing the ongoing investigation.
“I’ll verify there definitely was an escape attempt,” said DiGiacinto. “It was stopped. The staff that was on duty that day, they did a fantastic job preventing it from actually occurring. But I can’t go into the details of how he did it.”
But several sources within the criminal justice system provided independent accounts of the situation to the Windsor Star.
The escape attempt at the maximum security detention centre reportedly occurred on Saturday, Sept. 7.
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Sources said that the inmate climbed into a laundry bin, hid under some clothes, and let someone wheel him into a hallway. The inmate then snatched a correctional officer’s uniform, put it on, and tried to walk out of the facility, according to the sources. He was caught just before making it out the door.
The detention centre reportedly went into lockdown, with inmates confined to their cells, after the escape attempt was discovered.
It’s unclear how the inmate was able to get his hands on a correctional officer’s uniform and make it so close to freedom.
The detention centre has had ongoing issues with overcrowding and short staffing for several years. Those issues have often resulted in ongoing lockdowns because there are not enough correctional officers for the local jail population.
Shortly before it opened, the province said the new South West Detention Centre would have 315 beds. But according to recent reports, the jail has a 262-person capacity.
The Ministry of the Attorney General did not confirm before deadline if this was the first attempted escape from South West Detention Centre.
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In March, an inmate at the Windsor facility stabbed a corrections officer who was escorting him from his cell to another room for a video court appearance.
The modern 200,000-square-foot centre, built at a cost of $247 million, started taking in prisoners in July 2014. It replaced the cramped and outdated Windsor Jail, which opened in 1925, and the Chatham Jail, built in 1847.
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In September 2013, an inmate was accidentally released from the old Windsor Jail instead of being handed over to the Canada Border Services Agency. The man had served his sentence in Windsor, but the Canada Border Services Agency had a “hold” on the inmate so they could escort him back to the U.S. CBSA officers tracked the man down shortly after and returned him to the U.S.
In 2015, a 19-year-old inmate went on the lam for two weeks after tricking guards at London’s Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre into setting him free. The man passed himself off as his cellmate, who was due to be released.
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