[HN Gopher] A man who broke into jail
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A man who broke into jail
https://archive.ph/zt15Q
Author : fortran77
Score : 97 points
Date : 2026-03-03 23:09 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| jbd123 wrote:
| 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.
| amenghra wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| csh0 wrote:
| It's all part of the game it seems.
|
| The US bugged the "toilet partitions" of the Russian embassy
| in D.C. during its construction[0] and the FBI built a tunnel
| under it for espionage purposes in the 80s[1].
|
| [0] https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/CIA-
| RDP90-00965R000...
|
| [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20100514112651/http://article
| s.o...
| peddling-brink wrote:
| And it was the person both least, and most suspected.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| It's always someone you either do or do not suspect!
| xvxvx wrote:
| Leaving keys etc. I could understand as a political statement,
| but loaded guns? Madman!
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| He gives a reason for doing so, although the article points out
| that his reason is suspect.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| More like the sheriff is butthurt at the explanation, even
| were it proven true he wouldn't be able to accept it as such.
|
| Though, Friedman also does have a touch of the narcissim
| thing going on, in that he enjoys it that Hall says "he can't
| be understood".
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _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.
| brendanfinan wrote:
| cruel and unusual
| Verdex wrote:
| "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."
| RyanOD wrote:
| Should have banned him from playing Top Secret.
| scottLobster wrote:
| To be fair, he sounds a little more intense than your average
| player:
|
| "A psychologist concluded that Friedmann suffered from
| dysthymia, today known as persistent depressive disorder, and
| schizoid personality disorder, writing that he showed
| "indifference to social relationships and a restricted range of
| emotional experience and expression." He also had a tendency to
| "blur fantasy with reality."
|
| Friedmann was convicted of armed robbery and attempted murder"
| hollywood_court wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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
| throwup238 wrote:
| State prisons are usually only a smidge better than
| county. They're a slight improvement in that they'll give
| shitty prison dentures instead of just pulling all the
| teeth.
|
| The other side of it is that prison is the first time
| many people get any dental work done at all so they cone
| in with large problems all ready.
| qingcharles wrote:
| Yes, sadly a lot of people coming through these
| institutions have terrible dental issues and probably
| need a lot of teeth removed already. Hopefully in the
| future the dream of regrowing adult teeth will come to
| fruition.
| shagie wrote:
| > 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.
|
| https://www.wmtv15news.com/content/news/MFD-Shed-fire-at-
| aba... A man committed arson because he
| said he wanted to go back to prison and learn a trade this
| time. ... The suspect said he
| thought he had done enough to stay locked up earlier this
| week when he was arrested Monday for stealing $10,000 worth
| of property and a SUV from family members. Tuesday he was
| released from the Dane County Jail. He said to an officer
| that threw him for a loop, and he didn't know what to do.
| The officers asked the man about another piece of paper
| found at the shed which was a handwritten bank robbery
| note. The suspect said that was plan B in case starting the
| fire didn't work. He didn't want to do that because he
| didn't want to scare or hurt anyone. He figured igniting an
| abandoned shed should cause no significant hardship.
|
| While I can't find it anymore, the police report for it was
| written in a much more literary style than the typical
| "notes and facts".
| uwagar wrote:
| im reminded of an o henry story where a guy tries that.
| zem wrote:
| same. there's a classic o. henry short story, "the cop and the
| anthem", based on this premise.
| assimpleaspossi wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_the_Fox
|
| I didn't know about about this film. Thank you!
| dylan604 wrote:
| 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.
| TYPE_FASTER wrote:
| I watched the Pink Pather movies with my dad growing up,
| and re-watched them with my son a year or two ago. Watching
| them with him was kinda like watching for the first time.
|
| He was so funny. I need to watch some of his other films.
| js2 wrote:
| If you've never seen _Being There_ , put it at the top of
| your list.
| MrFots wrote:
| Chauncey Gardiner
| qingcharles wrote:
| Most county jails don't do any identity checks as they release
| detainees (except ask their ID number and birth date), they are
| usually small enough for the staff to know all the prisoners.
|
| I remember one incident at the Cook County Jail where two
| prisoners "swapped identity":
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/escaped-inmate-jahquez-...
| bstsb wrote:
| 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
| pluralmonad wrote:
| I like to think all of my actions are a consequence of my
| mental conditions.
| bot403 wrote:
| Not a chance, all of our actions are disconnected from our
| mental conditions and have been pre-decided for us.
| jareklupinski wrote:
| > reelection
|
| > reenacted
|
| whats with the ree-s in the article...
| enmyj wrote:
| that's the New Yorker signature style
| jareklupinski wrote:
| i thought jaywalking was the new yorker signature style :P
| nerevarthelame wrote:
| 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 "Zoe"
| - the "e" indicates the pronunciation is "zoe-y" (2 syllables)
| not "zoe" (1 syllable).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic)#English
| jareklupinski wrote:
| til, thank you! i guess it's important for them we all
| cooperate on proper spek :P
|
| thought i was seeing this because some ebooks also have
| missing/poorly substituted ligatures for me
| irdc wrote:
| As a Dutch person, what's interesting to me is how this exact
| rule applies to Dutch. Maybe that's why I didn't notice it
| while reading the article...
| retrac wrote:
| Some style guides recommend the diaeresis over doubled vowels
| when they are pronounced separately. The idea is I believe from
| French: mais, Noel, 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
| coordination. 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.
| derriz wrote:
| > The idea is I believe from French: mais, Noel, etc.
|
| Apropos of nothing, except that it will allow me to vent a
| bit, it also changes the rule for the pronunciation of the
| last consonant of French words.
|
| Normally the lack of a trailing "e" would mean the last
| consonant is not-sounded but the diaeresis changes it:
| mais/"my-isz", Noel/"noh-ell", etc.
|
| And yes Moet (the champagne) is pronounced "moh-ett" in
| France and by French speakers.
|
| It's incredibly annoying having someone subtly but in a
| slightly superior manner "correct" your pronunciation by
| repeating the mispronunciation right after you've pronounced
| it correctly - "sure, I'll order some some MOHAY". Outside
| I'm smiling and nodding pretending not to notice, inside I'm
| screaming "IT'S MOH-f _cking-ETT M_ THERF*KER - MOH-ETT."
| sebastiennight wrote:
| > it also changes the rule for the pronunciation of the
| last consonant of French words.
|
| This was a very well explained distinction, with the
| exception of you using "Noel" as one of the examples, since
| "Noel" would still have a sounded "L". It would be weird to
| a French speaker but would most likely end up being
| pronounced somewhat like the English "null".
|
| > And yes Moet (the champagne) is pronounced "moh-ett" in
| France and by French speakers.
|
| My favorite Moet mispronunciation is one that it took me
| several months to understand: Russians pronounce it as if
| it was spelled in Cyrillic, so they say "mah- yacht".
|
| There is a famous MORGENSHTERN song which I only understood
| was about champagne when I saw the music video for the
| first time.
| dogtimeimmortal wrote:
| interesting article, though i probably would have skipped if not
| for a hand injury i'm dealing with.
|
| mentioned in the article:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_People_Play_(book)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Berne
|
| all i can think is the guy is nuts. why sabotage the new jail
| where you have a personal relationship with with the new sheriff
| and are supposedly making progress fixing all the problems with
| the old system? i don't know what i was expecting...
| qingcharles wrote:
| I don't know. I've communicated with Alex a few times over the
| last decade or so and he's always seemed one of the most
| rational, smart and pragmatic jail reformers I've ever know. He
| has always followed the legal path through the courts, even
| though it is often broken, trying to make it less broken for
| those coming behind.
|
| You can't see inside anyone's mind. What caused him to commit
| his original offense that got him locked up for a decade? It
| wasn't a crime of necessity, I'm sure. Most crimes aren't. A
| lot of people commit crimes because some untreated mental
| health issue which lowers their self control. Then followed by
| ten years he was locked up, who knows what damage that did to
| his psyche which lay undiscovered?
|
| edit: I've now read the rest of the article, and I knew nothing
| of the extensive mental health issues Alex suffers from
| twohaibei wrote:
| I recommend reading on "Witold Pilecki" - old story, but pretty
| fascinating.
| mcswell wrote:
| Otis Campbell was known for locking himself into the Mayberry
| jail.
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(page generated 2026-03-05 23:00 UTC)