The search continued today for an inmate accused of beating a jailer and escaping from the Warren County Jail Wednesday morning.

“We’ve been talking to family members trying to get him to turn himself in,” police Lt. Bobby Stewart said of Leon Walker Bryant, 33, 4920 Halls Ferry Road, who was arrested Tuesday on a warrant for sale of cocaine and hours later overpowered Kenneth Robinson, a jailer who was picking up laundry from his cell block, Sheriff Martin Pace said.

Bryant took an elevator to the bottom level and left on foot without a weapon, Pace said.

Police and deputies began a search around the jail at Grove and Cherry streets but concentrated on the entire city as time passed.

 “We were checking locations where he was known to frequent, at first,” Stewart said.

He said officials went door-to-door in the area of the jail and checked vacant buildings throughout the city.

When he was arrested at the Greyhound bus station Tuesday afternoon, Bryant had been a fugitive for two years, since leaving town after being indicted on drug charges by a grand jury, Stewart said.

He was accused of selling $40 worth of cocaine to an informant, Stewart said.

Before that, Bryant was convicted on a possession of cocaine charge in 1996 and sale of cocaine in 2002, Warren County District Attorney Ricky Smith said.

Bryant will pick up two more felony charges, escape and assaulting a law enforcement officer, if found.

Robinson was treated for bruising at River Region Medical Center and released.

Officials were asking anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at 601-355-8477.

Contact Tish Butts at tbutts@vicksburgpost.com