The Man Who Broke into Jail

(newyorker.com)

39 points | by fortran77 1 day ago

9 comments

  • pavel_lishin 1 hour ago
    > Friedmann’s infatuation with the game had continued after he moved to Nashville, becoming so intense that his psychologist stipulated in the terms of his parole that, along with being kept from weapons, he be prevented from playing fantasy games such as D. & D.

    Now that's ... that's weird.

    • Verdex 24 minutes ago
      "Its not a fantasy game, it's far future dystopian post apocalyptic implied hyper technical ethereal augmentation science fiction."

      "Very clever sir. But Im aware of what dark sun is. You'll have to come with me."

    • brendanfinan 32 minutes ago
      cruel and unusual
  • assimpleaspossi 57 minutes ago
    One of the Peter Sellers films (Pink Panther?), he goes to prison to visit an inmate only to have the inmate take his identity, fake beard, moustache and clothes, and walks out of jail. This happens several times. In the very last scene, he's walking out of the jail, a smirk on his face, and tries to pull off his fake beard and moustache but it doesn't come off. "Good heavens! The wrong man has escaped!!"
    • TYPE_FASTER 27 minutes ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_the_Fox

      I didn't know about about this film. Thank you!

      • dylan604 23 minutes ago
        Aw man, I'm kind of jealous of you. To be able to go back and see Peter Sellers movies for the first time again would be amazing. My dad absolutely loved him, and I can still hear him cackling at his movies growing up. As a kid, they weren't very funny, but as an adult I now get it.
  • hollywood_court 1 hour ago
    I thought this was going to be about someone that wanted to go to jail in order to receive meals and/or healthcare. But this article was far more interesting.
    • butterbomb 1 hour ago
      > I thought this was going to be about someone that wanted to go to jail in order to receive meals and/or healthcare.

      Tbf, there’s probably an easier way to achieve that goal that involves much less serious charges than breaking into the jail lol.

      • hollywood_court 59 minutes ago
        I'm sure there are. One of my mother's husbands — she had four, all cops — loved to tell the story about arresting a man outside of a Zippy Mart on Virginia Loop Road in Montgomery, AL.

        The cashier called 911 and told them that a man had robbed the store. When he pulled up he found the man sitting on the curb just waiting for him. He had pulled a knife and stolen one pack of Big Red chewing gum from the store.

        All because it was getting cold outside and he needed a place to sleep. And he also had a toothache that had been bothering him for weeks. So he hoped to see a doctor while he was in county jail.

        • qingcharles 11 minutes ago
          Out of all the places to be incarcerated, county jails in the USA have a pretty poor record on healthcare. They are run by the counties, not the states, and therefore it is open season on how they provide the services. Most [1] just contract to the lowest bidder private provider. These providers' jobs are to dispense the lowest amount of healthcare to the lowest amount of patients in order to maximize profits. Mostly providing only emergency care to those who are in immediate risk of death. Many also require the prisoners to use the funds provided by their family (for phone calls, letters, clothing, food etc) to pay to even put a medical request into the system in the first place.

          In terms of dental, most county jails will only do tooth pulls, not any other type of dental work. They will not try to save teeth at all.

          [1] some larger areas like Cook County have their own healthcare systems and can be somewhat more sophisticated and less constrained by monetary concerns

  • bstsb 43 minutes ago
    fascinating article. while i certainly sympathise somewhat with Alex - it is clear his actions are at least in part a consequence of mental conditions - i can't help but feel like being caught wasn't his plan as the article seems to suggest, and he wanted chaos upon the prison's opening, as some kind of strange payback or revenge
  • jbd123 2 hours ago
    Jail is a unique place. If you break in, they’ll gladly let you stay or at least welcome you back at a later date. They may even insist on it. It is a deeper more interesting story, but that is the first thing that came to mind.
  • xvxvx 1 hour ago
    Leaving keys etc. I could understand as a political statement, but loaded guns? Madman!
    • pavel_lishin 1 hour ago
      He gives a reason for doing so, although the article points out that his reason is suspect.
  • amenghra 2 hours ago
    TL;DR: "while a new jail in Nashville was still under construction, staff discovered missing keys and other anomalies. Surveillance footage eventually revealed that someone had repeatedly disguised themselves as a construction worker and entered the building many times. Inside, they hid weapons, tools, and escape items in walls and rooms around the facility."
    • NoSalt 1 hour ago
      Reminds me of the US Embassy in Russia that was built, by Russians, who embedded thousands of spying devices within the building itself. It took 27 years to build, then debug the building.
    • peddling-brink 1 hour ago
      And it was the person both least, and most suspected.
      • IAmBroom 55 minutes ago
        It's always someone you either do or do not suspect!
  • jareklupinski 31 minutes ago
    > reëlection

    > reënacted

    whats with the ree-s in the article...

    • retrac 1 minute ago
      Some style guides recommend the diaeresis over doubled vowels when they are pronounced separately. The idea is I believe from French: maïs, Noël, etc.

      I was taught to do it that way in public school here in Canada in the 90s; it is the textbook proper way to spell words like coördination. I was also taught that no one actually spells it that way and that co-ordination and coordination are both fine and far more common.

    • nerevarthelame 14 minutes ago
      It's a diacritic marker that indicates how the word is supposed to be pronounced, with a syllable break on the marked letters - as though readers might get confused and think the word is pronounced "reel-ection" as opposed to "re-election." It's a pretty archaic practice, but The New Yorker persists. They have a lot of unusual stylistic preferences, like preferring the spelling "vender" over "vendor," which also occurs in this article.

      A more common example of the diaeresis would be the name "Zoë" - the "ë" indicates the pronunciation is "zoe-y" (2 syllables) not "zoe" (1 syllable).

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic)#English

      • jareklupinski 4 minutes ago
        til, thank you! i guess it's important for them we all coöperate on pröper spek :P

        thought i was seeing this because some ebooks also have missing/poorly substituted ligatures for me

    • enmyj 19 minutes ago
      that's the New Yorker signature style
      • jareklupinski 6 minutes ago
        i thought jaywalking was the new yorker signature style :P
  • fortran77 1 day ago