Manhunt after 34 prisoners escape from police station through sewer

30 August 2023 , 07:35

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Officers capturing one of the escaped prisoners (Image: Jam Press Vid)

A manhunt has been launched after 34 prisoners escape from a police station in Colombia - through a sewer.

Officers managed to catch 18 of the detainees, but 16 still remain on the loose after getting into a waste water drainpipe and running off into the street. Patrol units rocked up in a frantic bid to capture the suspects, some of whom were reportedly facing drug possession, robbery and weapon charges.

Bogotá Metropolitan Police colonel Herbert Benavidez said they initiated the escape after calling an officer who was guarding their cell before attacking him. He is understood to have suffered serious but non life-threatening injuries.

An appeal shows the escaped prisoners wanted by police (Jam Press)

Footage shows half a dozen cops capturing one of the prisoners and bundling them into the back of a van. An eyewitness told local media: "I saw them lift the lid up. Then they got through and fell down."

As quoted by Euro ES Euro, Benavidez said: "According to the information that is being handled in the middle of the investigation, one of the policemen who is on sentinel approached the gate after they called him and there the inmates attacked him. They opened the gate, then later through the walls of the station they manage to flee.

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"The first information we have is that 34 prisoners have escaped, of whom 18 were immediately recaptured and 16 are the ones that are needed. At this moment the capture operation is being carried out."

The scene at the police station after some of the prisoners were caught (Jam Press)

He added: "We also have all the capabilities of the judicial police and intelligence working in this entire area in order to achieve the recapture, therefore, any information that they can give us about suspicious persons will be valued and obviously verified."

The incident, which happened in the Teusaquillo area of Bogotá, comes just a week after 41 inmates attacked an officer and fled jail in nearby Soacha. And in April, four inmates escaped a Mississippi prison through a hole in the ceiling of a cell.

The sheriff said they most likely "camped out" on the roof before each making their escape from the facility. Of those four escaped inmates, two were found dead and two were recaptured by police.

Last year, in June, another three inmates similarly cut through a ceiling to break out of a prison in Barry County, Missouri. At the time, a Sheriff's Office detective told CNN that the escape had been enabled because the building was old and had ceilings made of plaster.

Katie Weston