Two murderers escape maximum security NY prison . . . using power tools?

Am I the only one who allows himself to think, if only for a moment, that this is kind of impressive? I know, I know . . reality has to hit you and do so quickly. These are very dangerous men who have killed before and almost surely would have no compunction about doing so again if they think it's necessary to help them evade capture. So it's not with approval, but a sort of horrified respect, that I observe escape from maximum security prison using power tools is quite the dubious achievement. Quite dubious. And quite the achievement:

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Convicted killers Richard Matt and David Sweat pulled off the kind of prison break that would normally be fodder for movies -- except theirs might be even more astonishing. Armed with a complex plot and power tools, the pair did what no one else has been able to do in the 170-year history of New York state's most populated prison -- escape from its maximum security walls. Now, as authorities look for the men in three countries, many are left scratching their heads. . . . After cutting through the steel walls of their cells, the two followed a catwalk "down an elaborate maze of pipes into tunnels and exited a series of tunnels at the manhole cover," the governor said.

The most obvious question, of course, is how they got their hands on the power tools. Gov. Cuomo notes that because the prison undergoes regular maintenance, it's not inconceivable that Matt and Sweat grabbed the tools of maintenance workers as they were laying around. But come on. That's awfully happenstance to be the centerpiece of an escape plan this elaborate. You really think they happened to grab a drill when no one was looking and then said, hey, maybe we could use this to escape? It seems more like to me that they knew they could get the tools they needed because they had help.

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Question: how they made use of the tools without anyone seeing or hearing

Then of course there's the question of how they made use of the tools without anyone seeing or hearing. Have you ever used a power drill? Even a small one makes a lot of noise. Granted, prison is probably a fairly noisy environment so maybe the natural white noise provided enough cover, but you don't exactly have any privacy in a prison cell either. I guess all this is going to the natural suspicion that they don't come anywhere close to pulling this off unless they have some sort of accomplice, or several. So now that they're on the loose? For one thing, they wouldn't stay together, would they? That only increases their chance of being caught because the authorities will be telling everyone to look out for a pair like those in the photo above. And you can change your hair color and so forth, but I'd think it's still a lot easier to blend into a crowd if you're alone and not with the guy who's with you in the picture everyone's looking at. If they had help, presumably the help would also be their source of money, so the cops might be on the lookout for people paying cash at cheap motels - although it's not inconceivable that someone got them credit cards using fake names. These days, even if you pay cash at a hotel (which I frequently do) they still make you give them a credit card to either hold the reservation or secure against subsequent charges while you're in the room. If someone supplied them with a car, and it's neither stolen nor on any sort of police BOTL lists, that would make them a lot harder to track down before they could get almost anywhere in the country. There's also this: You have to take them seriously as a threat to kill, but at the same time any sort of crime that's committed is going to attract the attention of those charged with finding them, so you'd think they'd consider that an absolute last resort, wouldn't you? Then again, cold-blooded killers kill. It's what they do. As tempting as it is to get caught up in the intrigue here, these two are obviously very dangerous men and let's pray they get re-captured as soon as possible. Then they can tell the whole story of their impressive, but hopefully short-lived, escape.

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