Erie County Prison Warden on Housing High Profile Inmate, Michael Burham
The Erie County Prison, a non-descript low profile building at 16th and Ash Streets in the city of Erie, now has a high profile prisoner.
"He's on close watch right now though as you can imagine," said Prison Warden Kevin Sutter. "We want to get a feel for him and see what his mindset is. He's in a suicide smock, a pair of sandals, with a mattress, and we're evaluating from there."
The now notorious Michael Burham, captured Saturday evening after a 9-day-manhunt, is one of 720 local, state and federal prisoners currently housed at the Erie County Prison. After a physical and psychological evaluation, he was placed in restricted housing.
We asked, "Has there ever been an escape from this facility?" The answer from the warden, "No ma'am."
Burham escaped the Warren County jail because of apparent vulnerabilities in their outside exercise yard. We asked how exercise is handled at the Erie County Prison. "It's a little different here because we're all self contained, we have no outside yards, things like that, totally different set up," the warden said. "They're connected right to the housing unit pods and they can go out there and play basketball and do what they need to do. We have some weight equipment on the pods that they can use, bicycles, dip bars, things like that, so they can get their rec in," he added.
Burham is detained by the U.S. Marshals Service on a federal warrant for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. The Erie County Prison could have said no to housing him. "We do have the right to refuse but we have bigger fish than Burham," Warden Sutter said. "He's no different than anybody else, he just is high risk that's all and we have the capability to handle that."
And while Burham is locked up inside, his story is national news outside. NBC News Correspondent George Solis and his news crew doing a day of live shots from the Erie County Prison lawn. "People were very curious of this story they wanted to know how Michael Burham pulled this off how it did it, where he was," Solis said. "And with all these details unfolding, especially following his capture it was so pivotal to share that with all our audience," he added.
Warden Sutter said the physical examination showed that Michael Burham was not injured, and was not limping as some authorities had speculated. He may be stepped down to a different classification as the prison's special review committee continues to evaluate him, Sutter said.