Helicopters swarmed over neighborhoods Monday searching for six of 10 inmates who escaped from a prison after men on the outside threw a gun and wire cutters over the fence to them.
Police caught the other four within hours of Sunday's breakout, described as the largest in Michigan in 70 years.The search was concentrated in a neighborhood near the medium-security Ryan Correctional Facility, said Detroit police Lt. Gregory Gaskin.
"We're still out shaking the bushes. We're checking old addresses, old haunts, old girl-friends," Gaskin said. Among those still at large were three convicted murderers.
The inmates needed only three to five minutes to escape Sunday morning, the Corrections Department said in a statement.
Two men tossed a shotgun, shells and wire cutters into the exercise yard, managing to get the items over a 12-foot fence and another six-foot fence 20 feet away, authorities said. Five guards were watching a total of about 50 inmates at the time, The Detroit News reported Monday.
The 10 inmates shot at prison guards while making their way through holes cut in the fences, the Corrections Department said. No one was injured. The inmates fled in cars.
It was the first escape since the $62 million prison opened in 1991 and the largest in the state since 1924, when 24 prisoners broke out of a state reformatory. State Corrections Director Kenneth McGinnis ordered a review of security at the Ryan prison.
Its approximately 1,000 inmates were ordered confined to their cells after the esacape.
Gov. John Engler, who toured the prison, deflected questions about why murderers were in a medium-security facility.