Inmates on the run after killing guard

• Source: Global Times
• [02:34 October 19 2009]
• Comments

Four inmates on death row or serving life sentences were still at large late last night after escaping from prison Saturday afternoon and killing a guard.

By Guo Qiang

Four inmates on death row or serving life sentences were still at large late last night after escaping from prison Saturday afternoon and killing a guard.

Officials said the men escaped from the No. 2 Prison of Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, at about 2:30 pm Saturday. The Prison Management Bureau in Inner Mongolia, which supervises the prison, quickly issued arrest warrants and released photos of the four escapees.

Yan Bingqiang, chief of the Hohhot Public Security department, urged local residents not to panic about the escape as local public security officers and armed police officers have launched a massive search operation by setting up more than 150 roadblocks at main intersections to arrest the absconded prisoners, who were believed to still be in Hohhot.

The prisoners, who were carrying out their routine labor, killed a correctional officer and wounded a security guard, before managing to flee westward with a taxi they commandeered on the street, officials said.

A report on jcrb.com, the official website of the China Procuratorial Daily, said that, citing a source familiar with the incident, a 30-year-old prison officer was killed and his uniform was taken by one of the prisoners, who took control of a prison chief and his pass card, before heading out toward the main gate of the prison with other accomplices disguised as migrant workers, who were also probably killed.

At the main gate, the four escapees injured a security guard with a knife and fled by taxi, the report said.

The prisoners kidnapped a second taxi after the first one ran out of fuel, and abandoned the car and fled toward Zhanggaiying, it said.

By press time, local police officers had found the first taxi but not the second one.

Sources familiar with the prison said it always allowed visits from the outside and was notorious for its facilities and capabilities for managing prisoners.

According to the report, nine people with the jail were found to have criminal responsibility for the prison-break, without elaborating.

The government has notified residents about the incident and released mugshots of the four inmates on the run via local TV news.

Police in Hohhot have set up hotlines for tip-offs from the public, in the hope of gleaning clues to help with the early arrest of the escapees.