MOULTRIE — Members of the Colquitt County Sheriff’s Office spent Monday afternoon and evening searching for an inmate who escaped.

CCSO Capt. Julius Cox, operations supervisor, said Anthony Moses Jordan, 31, of 3206 Quail Lake Village in Norcross, escaped from the jail about 1:20 p.m. Monday. As soon as his escape was reported, Colquitt County Sheriff’s deputies converged on a wooded area behind Old Mexico on First Avenue Southeast and formed a perimeter around First Avenue Southeast, Fourth Avenue Northeast, Rowland Drive and North Veterans Parkway. He had not been caught as of early Monday evening.

Jordan was able to escape when about 20 other inmates began acting like they were going to get into a fight while in the jail yard, Cox said. When a jailer went to break up the fight, believed to have been staged, someone supposedly helped Jordan climb onto the jail’s roof.

Once on the roof, Cox said Jordan took off his prison jumpsuit, jumped onto the roof of the jail’s control area then leapt onto the ground. One control room operator reported hearing a thump on the roof about the time of Jordan’s escape, and another jailer reported seeing him run through the jail’s parking lot toward North Veterans Parkway.

Cox said deputies immediately formed the perimeter once Jordan’s escape was reported. In addition to deputies searching the area, the CCSO’s search dogs and a GEMA helicopter with locator equipment were brought in to assist with the search.

Jordan was found guilty of burglary, two counts of armed robbery and two counts of aggravated assault stemming from a residential burglary in May. He, along with other unknown persons, kicked in the back door of a home on 812 Seventh Ave. S.E. at 2 a.m. June 27, 2008, and stole clothing, jewelry, a cell phone and approximately $900 in cash. He was sentenced to two life sentences in prison plus 20 years on the charges.

Anyone with information on Jordan’s whereabouts is asked to call 911 or the sheriff’s office at 616-7430 immediately. Jordan was not known to be armed but was considered dangerous.