Texas Seven Ambush Police: Officer Hawkins Dies in Irving

Seven escaped convicts robbed an Oshman's sporting goods store in Irving, Texas, on December 24, 2000, ambushing and fatally shooting police officer Aubrey Hawkins as he responded to a silent alarm. Hawkins was twenty-nine years old and had been married for eight months. He was working an off-duty security detail at the store when the Texas Seven, who had escaped from the John B. Connally Unit maximum-security prison eleven days earlier, entered and began emptying the gun cases. When Hawkins arrived, the group opened fire with multiple weapons, striking him eleven times. They then ran over his body with a vehicle as they fled. The murder transformed a prison escape into a capital crime and triggered a nationwide manhunt. The seven fugitives had overpowered guards at the Connally Unit on December 13 using an elaborate scheme that involved impersonating civilian maintenance workers and correctional supervisors. They bound thirteen employees and a visitor with tape and electrical cord, stole the prison's armory, and drove away in a stolen prison pickup truck. They had been living in a motor home, moving between campgrounds and using stolen identities. An America's Most Wanted broadcast on January 20, 2001, generated over two thousand tips, and the group was traced to a trailer park in Woodland Park, Colorado. Larry Harper killed himself during the arrest. The remaining six were tried, and four received death sentences. The case exposed critical failures in Texas prison security and prompted a comprehensive overhaul of the state's correctional system. Hawkins was posthumously honored, and the Irving Police Department established the Aubrey Hawkins Memorial Award.