My point exactly Huck. Maybe it was a stupid court decision that caused this. Or maybe there were supposed to be multiple guards, but the other guards were taking a smoke break.
The only thing that recommends this essay is that very few trees were sacrificed in its creation.
I worked for Dept of Corrections here in Northern Louisiana from 1992-1997.
For most of that time, I was a transport officer. We took inmates to court on a very frequent basis. It was standard practice to remove cuffs prior to taking an inmate into the courtroom.
This was in a very rural parish (county) and there was always 2 officers that carried inmates to court. Of course, everyon in the courtroom knew, just by seeing 2 armed uniformed officers there, the guy standing there was an already sentenced to state prison time and was back for a 2nd helping.
There are some other ways for helping restrain the inmate. One is to make the inmate wear a leg brace on 1 leg under his jeans. This will prevent him from running, but just like Chester on Gunsmoke, he can still move pretty fast with the right incentive.
Sun technologies make a "stun belt". This device is placed on the inmate and has a 50K volt power pak that fits over his right kidney. It is activated by remote control and gives him an 8 second ride of his life. But you have to check his medical record and have the Dr. authorize that this device be placed on him.
One thing that never made sense to me (among many others) all inmates in the state of Louisiana have their name and doc # stenciled on both legs of their jeans and on the back of their shirt. We would have to take his cuffs off, but everyone could easily see that he was already in prison.
Therefore this guys article is fairly accurate. PC gave this guy the means to do this by leaving him uncuffed and with a single guard, who by the way wouldn't have been armed by most police dept. standards, to watch him and a small guard at that.
I guess I read more than most but by all indications this is a county standard. I also read that in an interview by the sherrif and several deputies that were interviewed on sunday.