The Getaway

Police were searching for Hector Gomez, 28, of Kensington, who they said slipped through the ductwork of the Homicide Unit and then is believed to have walked out a door of the Police Department's headquarters at Eighth and Race Streets.

Gomez, who is described as a 5-foot-8 Hispanic weighing 140 pounds, is the first person in memory to successfully escape from custody in the department's central headquarters, police say.

Gomez, who has tattoos on his arms and fingers, has 15 prior arrests on charges including theft, drug possession and receiving stolen property. He now faces escape charges as well.

Gomez was arrested Sunday night near his home in the 3300 block of Kip Street in a car that police said had been reported stolen six days earlier.

After Gomez was unable to post 10 percent of the $10,000 bail that was set yesterday morning, he told East Division detectives that he had information about a murder.

Gomez was taken downtown to the Homicide Unit around 1:30 p.m. and placed in a locked interview room without handcuffs. If he had been a suspect in a homicide, Vanore said, he would have been manacled.

Around 5 p.m., detectives discovered that Gomez had stacked several chairs in the room and ripped out a vent in the ceiling, gouging out the opening in the drywall. He shimmied through the shaft and then apparently dropped out of the ceiling through a vent in a hallway.

Then the suspect apparently descended in an elevator from the second floor and walked out the door, said Vanore.