Four disciplined in jail escapes

LAFAYETTE — Four Lafayette Parish sheriff’s deputies have been disciplined for violating two departmental policies stemming from the March 10 escape of two inmates from the parish Correctional Center, authorities said Monday.

Sheriff’s Office spokesman Capt. Kip Judice said the deputies’ discipline ranged from a 10-day suspension without pay to a maximum sanction of a demotion in rank.

The Sheriff’s Office declined to release documents specifically identifying the employees and their discipline due to the employees’ right to privacy.

After overpowering two deputies inside a jail cell, two inmates, one dressed in a deputy’s uniform, passed through five checkpoints without raising suspicion before exiting the parish Correctional Center, the Sheriff’s Office has said.

The checkpoints were either monitored by jail staff or by video screens monitored by deputies in the jail’s master control room, a security component that controls doors to allow movement, the Sheriff’s Office has said.

Authorities arrested Kevin Gildhouse and Tony Jackson without incident later that morning near the Super One grocery on Ambassador Caffery Parkway.

Gildhouse was being held on a first-degree murder charge in the 2009 shooting death of Wallace Badeaux, a cab driver.

Jackson was being held on armed robbery charges from Lafayette and St. Martin parishes.

The internal investigation into the incident confirmed the primary contributing factor to the escape was Correctional Center employees’ failure to comply with policy, the sheriff’s spokesman said.

He identified those policies as performance of duty and unsatisfactory performance.

“The message I get from reviewing the findings is that the administrators who reviewed the investigation found no necessity to change any policy,” Judice wrote in an email Monday. “The policies governing the security of the facility are in place. It was failure to adhere to the policies that was addressed.”