Texas authorities are searching for a Latino inmate who was serving a life sentence for murder but escaped after stabbing the driver of a prison bus on which he was being transported.
Gonzalo Lopez, 46, fled Thursday while being transported through Leon County, a rural area between Dallas and Houston, said Jason Clark, chief of staff for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
The driver suffered injuries but his life is not in danger.
There were 16 prisoners on the bus but no one else escaped, according to Clark.
Gonzalo López in an undated image provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.AP
Lopez was convicted of killing a man in 2006 on the Texas-Mexico border.
As a precautionary measure due to the dangerousness of the prisoner, local authorities
canceled classes this Friday in the nearby
Centerville school district.
The Leon County Sheriff's Office said multiple law enforcement agencies are involved in the search, which is being assisted in addition to aircraft from the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Leon County has about 16,000 residents and is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of a state prison.
Prison records indicate Lopez was recently detained in Gatesville, more than 100 miles from where authorities were conducting the search Friday.
[Including an AR-15 rifle: the escaped inmate and the ex-officer had a cache of weapons in their car]
This Latino was in jail when a tornado hit.
He won over the sheriff and the community for his bravery
March 4, 202201:48
It is not the first escape of a prisoner during his transfer in Texas.
In 2019, a mixed martial arts fighter suspected of killing two people fled from a van and was missing for nine hours.
Authorities said they eventually found him hiding in a trash can.