Police caught a Texas inmate-turned-fugitive armed with a knife early Friday, after he escaped following a court appearance in Houston.
Joshua Nigel Thomas Sanders, 35, escaped around 3.30 p.m. Thursday, before holding a district attorney’s office employee against her will and trying to take her car, officials said.
The Harris County Texas Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on X that Sanders, 35, was captured at a property in Houston by the violent offenders fugitive task force.
Sanders resisted arrest and was tasered. He is currently being treated in a local hospital because of the “use of force incident” during his arrest, Saul Suarez, major of the criminal investigations bureau at the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said during a news conference early Friday.
Once he is considered well enough by doctors, he will be taken back to the Harris County Jail.
Since his re-arrest Sanders has been charged with aggravated robbery, for the attempted carjacking, and with escaping custody.
Police also arrested two other unidentified suspects on charges of hindering apprehension. Both are in police custody and were described by Suarez as “criminal associates” of the Sanders.
Suarez said: “At approximately 3 a.m. this morning our search came to and end when we finally located the suspect around the 1400 block of Force Street [in Houston].”
He also thanked public for the large amount of tips deputies received following the news of Sanders’ escape.
Assistant Chief Phillip Bosquez told a news conference on Thursday that Sanders was able to escape on his way back from court.
“He accosted a woman during that escape, once he got out on the street, and he jumped in her car. She wrecked that car within just a few feet,” he said.
Sanders got out of the disabled car and ran down the street, and that was the last time he is known to have been seen on camera, Bosquez said.
The woman held at knifepoint was later released unharmed, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office said.
“She was of course shaken up, but she was not injured,” Bosquez said. The woman was leaving work at the building when the incident occurred.
Sanders, described as a transient, was in custody on three counts of burglary and one count of unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon, Bosquez said.
“We truly believe we’ll run him to the ground,” he said. The sheriff’s office asked for any assistance from the public in searching for him.
Investigators believe Sanders had a knife during the escape, but Bosquez did not specify where it may have came from. “Anywhere once he got outside the jail,” he said.
An investigation into how the escape occurred is underway.