Easy out...

Then again, one of the very best escapes I can recall had to do with good old Sergeant Scramble. I’m not even sure it can be classified as an escape. It was more like a “kick-out”.

The jail, as I’ve mentioned, is on the second floor of a three-story building and is lined along the front and two sides by big, old sycamore trees. Unless an inmate is a Trusty who is sentenced to County Time, he or she has no business being outside the building, or even off of the second floor. And there are no circumstances when any Trusty is allowed outside at night, with the exception of winter when an occasional snowstorm makes it necessary for the Trusties to shovel the parking area. During these rare occasions, there is always an officer with them to supervise.
I don’t remember the inmate’s name so we’ll call him “Billy-Bob”. That’s a pretty common name among inmates, along with Spike, Bubba, Jose and John Doe. At any rate, how he had gotten outside the main building is unknown at this time, or else I was never informed or have forgotten, but somehow on one dark summer night, Billy-Bob managed to slip the surly bonds of the jail and was up on the roof with one thing on his mind: Escape.

The only way from the third floor rooftop to the ground is by way of the big sycamore trees that formed a kind of canopy between the jail and the street. Being young, agile, and in a desperate and foolish mode, Billy-Bob made it in a leap from rooftop to sycamore tree and was gradually beginning his decent when Sgt. Scramble happened to wander outside for a smoke.

It must have been a moment frozen in time: Billy-Bob hanging from the limbs of the sycamore tree, hovering just below the rooftop of the jail, while Sgt. Scramble stood below, lighting a cigarette and looking up at the man in the jail uniform who was looking back at him. How easy it would have been for Sgt. Scramble to call for help, to stop the escaping inmate and be the hero of the hour. What gratitude the sheriff and all the community would have shown him for keeping a dangerous criminal in the safe confines of the jail and off the streets. He might even have received a certificate or medal, and he certainly would have gotten a mountain of kudos from the Command Staff, the courts and the lawyers. It would have been so simple. So wondrous! It would have gone down in the annals of jail history as one of those glorious moments when a Sergeant proved his invaluable status. It would have, if it hadn’t been Sgt. Scramble.
Instead, he shook his fist at the escaping inmate, who was wearing his orange jail uniform, and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Hey! You! What’re you doing on jail property! Get down out of that tree and get out of here!”

And Billy-Bob obeyed.