The manhunt for a convicted killer who reduce by a steel plate on a jail bus to assault and stab the motive force and escape stretched into its seventh day Wednesday, officers mentioned.
New surveillance video photographs of Gonzalo Lopez, 46, who authorities say escaped in Leon County final Thursday after he briefly received management of the bus, had been launched by the Texas Division of Prison Justice on Wednesday.
“Every thing that we all know proper now signifies that he’s nonetheless on this space,” mentioned Robert Hurst, a public data officer for the division.
Lopez, who’s serving a life sentence for homicide and tried homicide convictions, received freed from his restraints, reduce by steel and crawled beneath a cage earlier than he attacked the motive force because the bus was west of Centerville, the division mentioned.
He stabbed the motive force within the hand, and so they ended up outdoors the bus in a bodily battle, officers mentioned.
Lopez then received again on the bus and commenced driving, and the officers shot the rear tire earlier than the bus went off the freeway, officers mentioned. Lopez received out and fled right into a wooded space, the Prison Justice Division mentioned.
“We don’t know what he used” to chop by the steel space and crawl into the motive force’s compartment, Hurst mentioned. He mentioned investigators are speaking to the 2 corrections officers and the opposite inmates who had been on the bus to study extra.
Greater than 300 regulation enforcement officers are concerned within the search space, which has a fringe of round 5 sq. miles, Hurst mentioned. The world, described as rural, with farms and ranches, is about midway between Houston and Dallas.
A $50,000 reward has additionally been supplied for data resulting in Lopez’s seize. Anybody seeing anybody suspicious is requested to name police.
On the day he escaped, Lopez was being taken from the Gatesville jail to Huntsville for a medical appointment, officers mentioned.
Different inmates on the bus remained of their restraints, officers mentioned. Lopez was in a separate caged space for high-security inmates, the Prison Justice Division mentioned.
A second officer was in a rear space additionally separated by a door, Hurst has mentioned. When the escape try started, the officer exited by the rear door and approached Lopez, who received again on the bus and began driving, the division mentioned.
Lopez was convicted in 2006 of kidnapping a person and killing him with a choose in Hidalgo County in 2005, in response to court docket paperwork, and he was sentenced to life in jail.
Jason Clark, the Prison Justice Division’s chief of workers, has mentioned that Lopez was convicted of killing the person after a ransom was not paid and that he has a historical past with gangs within the U.S. and Mexico.
