An inmate who escaped a Texas jail by carving through a brick wall has been caught.
Jace Martin Laws was taken into custody Friday morning after he was found at an auto body business in Smith County, Texas, officials said.
“It was a collaborative effort with multiple law enforcement agencies including Texas Rangers, the US Marshall service team, and other local law enforcement,” Gregg County Sheriff Lt. Josh Tubb told CNN “When they gained information on his location, he was overwhelmed to the point where he put up little to no resistance.”
Laws, 34, had been sentenced to 70 years for two counts of assault on a police officer, the county sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post Thursday.
The escaped inmate “carved out portions of the brick in the Gregg County South Jail, gaining access to the building infrastructure, and making his way to the exterior Gregg County Courthouse,” the sheriff’s office said.
Laws was first arrested for possession of marijuana on September 7, 2018, before being released the next day, records show. The following week, he was arrested again for evading arrest, burglary of a vehicle, burglary of a building, stealing property, and two counts of assaulting a police office, according to jail records.
