A midtown manhunt continued through the morning for an inmate authorities said beat an officer before escaping from the Warren County Jail just before dawn.

Leon Bryant, 33, 4920 Halls Ferry Road, being held on drug charges, overpowered jailer Kenneth Robinson as Robinson picked up laundry from Bryant’s cell block on the second floor, Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said.

When Robinson opened the cell block door, Bryant jumped over a laundry bag, attacked Robinson and took an elevator to the bottom level, Pace said. “The overpowering of the guard was strictly physical. He hit him with his fists,” said Pace.

Robinson was taken to River Region Medical Center with bruising and swelling to his head, Pace said. A hospital spokesman said the jailer was treated and released.

The sheriff said Bryant left the jail this morning on foot and without a weapon. “We have no reason to believe he’s armed,” Pace said. No other inmates fled.

Officers converged on the area, but Bryant was last seen near Adams and Jackson streets at about 5:48 a.m. wearing a white T-shirt and orange pants, police Lt. Bobby Stewart said. At about 9 a.m., Stewart said, officials broadened the search from the immediate area around the jail at Grove and Cherry streets to the entire city.

Bryant had been in jail overnight. At 4:45 p.m. Tuesday, police arrested Bryant as he returned from Texas on a Greyhound bus. “We received information that he would be on that bus,” said Stewart.

Bryant had left Vicksburg in 2008 after being indicted by a May grand jury on a sale of cocaine charge five months earlier, Stewart said. “He was accused of selling $40 worth of cocaine to a confidential informant,” said Stewart.

County officials were reviewing security tapes and reports this morning, Pace said.

If found, Bryant also will be charged with escape and assaulting a law enforcement officer, both felonies.

Officials were asking anyone with information leading to Bryant’s arrest to call Crime Stoppers at 601-355-8477.

Contact Tish Butts at tbutts@vicksburgpost.com