Happy September, Muggles! Hope you find this puzzle to be Smooth Sailing indeed, unlike the way a prison break should be.
The photo shows our local county prison, which made the international news a year ago when the five-foot-tall double murderer Danilo Cavalcante escaped by crabwalking up a brick wall and over a fence. He eluded his pursuers for two crazy weeks but was finally captured, behind a farm equipment store and wearing a stolen Philadelphia Eagles hoodie, by a handsome Belgian Malinois named Yoda (extra rations for this good boy!). Cavalcante is serving a life sentence without parole for the murders and on Aug. 30, 2024, was sentenced to an additional 15 to 30 years for the escape.
Back to the puzzle: thanks to Alan Kennan, Cap'n Rick, and a friend who wants to remain anonymous for test-solving, and as always to Joe Ross for his formatting lessons. Nudges later today!
Lunchtime nudges: You know how Mike Shenk's puzzle titles are often literal? Well, this one is, too. How do you suppose BREAK might be literally applied in a crossword grid?
Well, yeah, it might mean the break at the end of each row, but that would be too tricky for an SSS puzzle, especially one on a holiday weekend (Labor Day here in the USA). The black squares in the grid would certainly be a more obvious breaking point, don't you think?
Go back to the title. PRISON (or, perhaps, synonyms thereof) is what has been broken.