If, indeed, writers they be. Look at this story filed on the WTHI-TV website about the Greene County jail debacle.
Inmates accused of escaping for sexual encounters
Last Edited: Monday, 17 Nov 2008, 6:17 PM EST
Created On: Monday, 17 Nov 2008, 6:02 PM EST
Amanda Jarrett
GREENE COUNTY, Ind. (WTHI) – Secret rendezvous’s discovered at one Wabash Valley county jail.
STOP THE TAPE. The plural of “rendezvous” is “rendezvous”. Perhaps Amanda should have used a different word; say, “liaisons”. And what is with this breathless, contrived style? Most English teachers (well, in my day, anyway) would smack you down for this. It’s terrible.
Inmates at the Greene County Jail are accused of sneaking around for midnight visits together.
Just chop “together” off the end and that’s OK.
“Obviously this is embarrassing for us,” Greene County Sheriff Terry Pierce said.
Six inmates, Nicole Haldeman, Misty Moore, Kay Snyder, William Hutcherson, Alex Rathburn and Jesse Ross, all accused of escaping their cells for secret sexual meetings.
No, “Six inmates, [blah blah blah], are accused of escaping their cells, etc.”
Officials said the three women used a shower drain
No, they didn’t. They used a shower drain cover. Try reading the probable cause affadavit.
to pry open the ceiling tiles. Then they traveled from their cell block to the cell
No, they traveled to the cell block. And I would have said “They then” rather than “Then they”.
where the males were housed. Once the females were inside the males’ dorm they did everything from play cards to sexual activity, no one knows how it long it went on, jail officials guess it happened about 15 times.
Somebody needs to learn what commas are for. She’s got two sentences crammed together into one. Perhaps she should have included a full stop and placed her commas properly; for instance: “Once the females were inside the males’ dorm, they engaged in activities ranging from playing cards to having sex. No one seems to know how many times this happened, although jail officials believe it happened about fifteen times.”
The nighttime escapes were discovered last week when jailers found notes detailing the encounters here in the women’s cell. Sheriff Pierce said the escapes proves the jail is outdated.
If this is a script for her standup (as I am beginning to suspect), “here” works. But if it’s a news story for the website, “here” doesn’t work. Throw it out. And “proves” should be “prove”. A single escape proves. Multiple escapes prove.
“We need a new camera system, I don’t think in the years we’ve been here there’s been a sufficient camera system.”
Wow. I don’t have anything to say about this 🙂 Oh, that’s because it’s a direct quote from the sheriff.
Actually the rest of this seems reasonable.
There’s a camera in the women’s cell, but the inmates were able to sneak through the ceiling in the corner, out of the camera’s view.
“If there is a design flaw and you house inmates they will find it,” Sheriff Pierce said.
The only problem is, he isn’t saying what the design flaw is. Is it a flaw in the security panels in the ceiling? Or is it a flaw in the camera system? I realize he said that he would like a better camera system, but isn’t the flaw actually in the fact that the ceiling panels can be removed and the ceiling can be traversed, even if it’s pretty difficult to get the ceiling panels loose? It’s hard to say from the article (but perhaps the sheriff didn’t elaborate, so I can’t really blame the reporter).
In the meantime, the men have been moved and felony charges are pending against all six.
Sheriff Pierce said this isn’t the first time inmates have escaped from their cells. The sheriff is planning on talking to county commissioners about adding more preventive measures.
The more I look at this, the more I think this is a minimally-edited script for the reporter’s standup. But either way, it should be an embarassment for WTHI that they put this up on the net without editing it into something readable.