UPDATE: 9:23 p.m. – Three inmates ran from the van when it stopped at the hospital. Police caught one of the inmates. Coleman and Burns were left on the loose. There were 11 total prisoners in the van. Three went inside the hospital with the two guards and three ran. Five stayed locked up in the back.
UPDATE: 6:17 p.m. – Authorities say they have located the two inmates that were still on the run from an attempted escape this afternoon. Michael Coleman and Lester Burns have been arrested and are back in custody.
Police say they were located near the 1200 block of Chestnut in Weatherford. They were apparently standing in a backyard in that area. It’s not sure if anyone was home at that residence.
Here are the photos of all the inmates involved in the attempted escape:
UPDATE: 5:40 p.m. – Multiple police force agencies are in Weatherford, Oklahoma searching for two inmates still on the loose.
One is Michael Coleman. He is wearing a black t-shirt with a teddy bear on it. The other inmate is Lester Burns. He is wearing a camouflage t-shirt and he has a cast on his right arm.
Police say they stopped at the hospital because one inmate was complaining of chest pains. The two guards took three inmates into the hospital and left the rest of them in the van with the keys still in the ignition. Inmates were able kick out the partition in the van and got to the keys.
UPDATE: 3:47 p.m. – Authorities said they have six of the inmates back in custody who escaped from the Weatherford hospital Tuesday afternoon.
They have recovered the van and the shotgun as well. The van never left the hospital.
They are looking for one black man wearing a green t-shirt and blue jeans and a white man in a camouflage t-shirt.
Officials, this afternoon, said they found the van in a mobile home park in the area.
Authorities have not released the reasons they were arrested.
UPDATE 3:03 p.m. – We are getting reports that five of the inmates who escaped are back in custody. One may actually still be in the hospital and the two others are still on the loose.
Our report from earlier this afternoon:
WEATHERFORD, Okla. – Officials are searching for a group of inmates who they said escaped from a Weatherford hospital Tuesday afternoon.
Authorities said eight inmates took a white Chevrolet van with Tennessee plates, tag number 009-46H2 and speed fro the hospital.
Officials said they believe the van belongs to the “Prisoner Transportation Services of America” and has “PTS” written on the sides.
Weatherford officials said a shotgun was inside the van the inmates stole.
Authorities said they are not sure which direction the inmates might be traveling.
Police said the private company, PTS, was driving the inmates through Oklahoma when one got sick.
They stopped at a Weatherford hospital and that is when the inmates took off in the van.
If you see them or have any information, officials ask you to call 911 immediately.
According to the PTS website, they are based in Nashville, Tennessee, and is one of the nation’s largest prisoner extradition services in the nation.
This company has lost prisoners in the past. Back in 2009 they lost an attempted-murder suspect between Florida and Pennsylvania. That led to a search for the cuffed and shackled inmate.
In 1995 a shackled inmate escaped in September at Philadelphia International Airport while in the custody of a Prisoner Transportation Services guard and was captured a week later in Maryland.
