The seven escapees from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Connally Unit are wanted on capital murder arrest warrants following the Christmas Eve shooting death of Irving police Officer Aubrey Hawkins. DPS troopers are manning telephones 24 hours a day at the agency's Dallas-Fort Worth area headquarters on Interstate 30. Information will be forwarded to agencies whose personnel are working the case out in the field. Stationed at the center are DPS officials and others from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. White said two cars the convicts might be using to get around were seen in Fort Worth on Tuesday.
Authorities say the men are heavily armed.
They took 16 weapons in the prison breakout and 25 weapons, winter clothing and money were taken in the Christmas Eve robbery at the Oshman's, authorities have said. The prisoners stole a store employee's Ford Explorer but abandoned it a short time later in Irving, police said. On Sunday, officials were investigating whether an overnight robbery at a fireworks stand in southern Dallas County was pulled by some of the escaped convicts. It looked like their work. We are not ruling them out.