NEW ORLEANS — A handcuffed prisoner in a moving police cruiser managed to grab a gun, fatally shoot the officer at the wheel and escape from the vehicle, which crashed into a utility pole at a busy intersection, police said Saturday.
Officer Daryle Holloway, 45, died at a hospital, Police Chief Michael Harrison said. Meanwhile, an intense manhunt was on for Travis Boys, 33, the suspect who had been arrested on an aggravated-assault charge and was being taken to jail when he escaped.
The New Orleans Crimestoppers organization announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to Boys’ arrest.
Rifle-toting police in bulletproof vests, some with trained canines, searched whole blocks of one neighborhood about a mile from the city’s French Quarter on Saturday afternoon. Residents clustered on street corners to watch as officers checked backyards and examined crawl spaces under houses.
“He will be caught and he will be brought to justice for the murder of Officer Holloway and for this assault on our entire community,” Harrison said in a police department statement.
The shooting happened Saturday morning as Boys was handcuffed in the back seat of the vehicle. Boys managed to get his hands from behind his back to the front and obtain a weapon, Harrison told reporters at the scene.
Boys got to the front seat through an opening in the cage that separates front and back seats and shot Holloway, Harrison said.
Department spokesman Tyler Gamble said police were trying to determine what weapon Boys used and how he obtained it, but do not believe Boys used the officer’s gun.
Holloway had been a member of the New Orleans Police Department since 1992. He was the father of three children.
