6 ms·

> The prison where Epstein died was understaffed, and the guards tasked with watching him had no training on suicide watches. This could have been intentional,

> The prison where Epstein died was understaffed, and the guards tasked with watching him had no training on suicide watches. This could have been intentional, fyi.

nkrisc 7y ago
I would wager that those same conditions were true long before Epstein ever set foot in there as well.
- snagglegaggle 7y ago
  Apparently as Epstein arrived or shortly before his death the guards were rotated and two with very little suicide watch experience were present. One was also caught sleeping?
  - ssully 7y ago
    Is a guard sleeping on duty during a night shift surprising to you? As 542458 said, the level of competency that people assume is hilarious. Prison staff are overworked, underpaid, and have miserable jobs.
    - belltaco 7y ago
      It was two guards that both fell asleep. Okay that might be coincidence. What about the two cameras that failed at the same time? They should publish failure rates of cameras at that facility. When was the last time two sets of electronics failed at the exact same time randomly? If there was a voltage spike or something that killed them both how come it didn't affect anything else at the facility? Maybe they were EMP'ed or something? Okay that sounds fantastical, but I hope they do answer questions. There is likely an innocent explanation to all this, but there should be a thorough investigation.
      - jjeaff 7y ago
        Do you think these low tech security cameras are hooked up to Pager Duty or something so their crack team of IT pros staffed 24x7 can jump into action and fix them? They were probably broken for years.
        not2personal 7y ago
        Best case is that they are negligent as opposed to corrupt. Either way shouldn't everyone involved be on the way to jail?
        booboolayla 7y ago
        Camera feeds are looked at hourly as a SOP in prisons. What a ridiculous attempt to "prove" no wrongdoing.
        TheOperator 7y ago
        24x7 no but 9-5 staff fixing broken cameras in a matter of weeks is probably more typical. Especially considering how many cameras are in this one location and how straightforward it is to keep track of if any cells don't have working cameras. I'm not saying it's a movie where the moment a camera goes down a 250lb Russian goon comes down and investigates. However cameras not working for years? In the fucking suicide watch cell? You honestly think that's realistic? Honestly those would probably get replaced faster than most cameras... Maybe there's a few cameras people just forgot were broken and get forgotten about for years but it wouldn't be a typical case if the IT and maintenance team was even half-competent.
      - lb1lf 7y ago
        -I don't know how the cameras were installed, but it wouldn't surprise me if the explanation was simply that they were on the same mains circuit - only to have that trip for some reason or the other. Heck, possibly they were dumping their video onto a recorder in the prison guards' personnel room. Right next to the water boiler. With only one socket within easy reach. Go figure. (The latter example not being as far-fetched as it may seem; our workshop pager system went down several times a day for this very reason until we cajoled an electrician into fitting another outlet...)
  - throwaway743 7y ago
    Also the cameras just so happened to not have been recording at the time of the incident... doesn't seem coincidental considering his profile and potential to bring down some big name elites
    - shadowgovt 7y ago
      This is the problem with conspiracy theories... Avoidable accidents and conspiracy theories have the same fact pattern, which is an overlap of failure modes that should have been preventable but weren't prevented. Was the Titanic disaster a tragic accident borne of negligence... or a conspiracy to assassinate John Jacob Astor and make it look like an accident? A lot had to go wrong to make an unsinkable ship sink. Who paid off the watchmen that evening? Why was the captain going so fast? And did one of Astor's rivals gain a contract to sell the steel that... etc., etc. Occam's razor is important to keep handy, and Occam's razor here should be factoring in that American prisons are designed-by-committee-and-cruelty shit that have needed a massive overhaul for decades.
      - belltaco 7y ago
        Good post. I hope they do release the statistics of how often cameras fail at that facility. Two cameras failing in the same time widow feels very unlikely to me unless they're using some really bad ones, which won't surprise me. Would still like to know how that happened.
        jjeaff 7y ago
        Sure, two cameras failing at the same time right before he incident seems very suspicious. But is that the case? Seems more likely both cameras were broken and had been for a long time and were never fixed. How many other cameras in the facility were broken? If cameras are broken, how would you ever learn that they are broken? Perhaps it would require an important event like a suicide to occur so that you would need to review the tapes and discover the broken cameras.
        7y ago
  - nkrisc 7y ago
    How often do guards fall asleep on duty? How many guards have any reasonable amount of suicide watch experience? These don't sound like anomalies.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  So why would you put him there? Continual focus on the environment takes the attention of the exceptionally unusual identity of the prisoner.
  - lazyasciiart 7y ago
    Because that's where pre-trial prisoners are held. edit: or he could have gone to the Brooklyn facility, which has the same problems.

> The prison where Epstein died was understaffed, and the guards tasked with watching him had no training on suicide watches. This could have been intentional, fyi.

nkrisc 7y ago

I would wager that those same conditions were true long before Epstein ever set foot in there as well.

snagglegaggle 7y ago
Apparently as Epstein arrived or shortly before his death the guards were rotated and two with very little suicide watch experience were present. One was also caught sleeping?
- ssully 7y ago
  Is a guard sleeping on duty during a night shift surprising to you? As 542458 said, the level of competency that people assume is hilarious. Prison staff are overworked, underpaid, and have miserable jobs.
  - belltaco 7y ago
    It was two guards that both fell asleep. Okay that might be coincidence. What about the two cameras that failed at the same time? They should publish failure rates of cameras at that facility. When was the last time two sets of electronics failed at the exact same time randomly? If there was a voltage spike or something that killed them both how come it didn't affect anything else at the facility? Maybe they were EMP'ed or something? Okay that sounds fantastical, but I hope they do answer questions. There is likely an innocent explanation to all this, but there should be a thorough investigation.
    - jjeaff 7y ago
      Do you think these low tech security cameras are hooked up to Pager Duty or something so their crack team of IT pros staffed 24x7 can jump into action and fix them? They were probably broken for years.
      - not2personal 7y ago
        Best case is that they are negligent as opposed to corrupt. Either way shouldn't everyone involved be on the way to jail?
      - booboolayla 7y ago
        Camera feeds are looked at hourly as a SOP in prisons. What a ridiculous attempt to "prove" no wrongdoing.
      - TheOperator 7y ago
        24x7 no but 9-5 staff fixing broken cameras in a matter of weeks is probably more typical. Especially considering how many cameras are in this one location and how straightforward it is to keep track of if any cells don't have working cameras. I'm not saying it's a movie where the moment a camera goes down a 250lb Russian goon comes down and investigates. However cameras not working for years? In the fucking suicide watch cell? You honestly think that's realistic? Honestly those would probably get replaced faster than most cameras... Maybe there's a few cameras people just forgot were broken and get forgotten about for years but it wouldn't be a typical case if the IT and maintenance team was even half-competent.
    - lb1lf 7y ago
      -I don't know how the cameras were installed, but it wouldn't surprise me if the explanation was simply that they were on the same mains circuit - only to have that trip for some reason or the other. Heck, possibly they were dumping their video onto a recorder in the prison guards' personnel room. Right next to the water boiler. With only one socket within easy reach. Go figure. (The latter example not being as far-fetched as it may seem; our workshop pager system went down several times a day for this very reason until we cajoled an electrician into fitting another outlet...)
- throwaway743 7y ago
  Also the cameras just so happened to not have been recording at the time of the incident... doesn't seem coincidental considering his profile and potential to bring down some big name elites
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    This is the problem with conspiracy theories... Avoidable accidents and conspiracy theories have the same fact pattern, which is an overlap of failure modes that should have been preventable but weren't prevented. Was the Titanic disaster a tragic accident borne of negligence... or a conspiracy to assassinate John Jacob Astor and make it look like an accident? A lot had to go wrong to make an unsinkable ship sink. Who paid off the watchmen that evening? Why was the captain going so fast? And did one of Astor's rivals gain a contract to sell the steel that... etc., etc. Occam's razor is important to keep handy, and Occam's razor here should be factoring in that American prisons are designed-by-committee-and-cruelty shit that have needed a massive overhaul for decades.
    - belltaco 7y ago
      Good post. I hope they do release the statistics of how often cameras fail at that facility. Two cameras failing in the same time widow feels very unlikely to me unless they're using some really bad ones, which won't surprise me. Would still like to know how that happened.
      - jjeaff 7y ago
        Sure, two cameras failing at the same time right before he incident seems very suspicious. But is that the case? Seems more likely both cameras were broken and had been for a long time and were never fixed. How many other cameras in the facility were broken? If cameras are broken, how would you ever learn that they are broken? Perhaps it would require an important event like a suicide to occur so that you would need to review the tapes and discover the broken cameras.
        7y ago
- nkrisc 7y ago
  How often do guards fall asleep on duty? How many guards have any reasonable amount of suicide watch experience? These don't sound like anomalies.
anigbrowl 7y ago
So why would you put him there? Continual focus on the environment takes the attention of the exceptionally unusual identity of the prisoner.
- lazyasciiart 7y ago
  Because that's where pre-trial prisoners are held. edit: or he could have gone to the Brooklyn facility, which has the same problems.