Manhunt continues for Santa Clara County escapee

One caught; second was last seen in green Ford Explorer

STOCKTON » California Highway Patrol officers on Tuesday captured one of two inmates who escaped from a Palo Alto courthouse earlier this month and opened fire on the other as he fled in an SUV.

An investigation by the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office led authorities to suspect the two escaped inmates were hiding in Stockton, Sheriff’s Sgt. Richard Glennon said. Sheriff’s detectives, joined by Stockton police and the California Highway Patrol, were conducting surveillance Tuesday when authorities spotted a car they believed was occupied by the fugitives.

CHP officers tried to stop the green 1999 Ford Explorer on northbound Interstate 5 south of Eight Mile Road in Stockton. But the SUV sped away and led officers on a wild pursuit onto Trinity Parkway, where the driver jumped out and ran into a nearby Walmart, but was later arrested. The Sheriff’s Office confirmed the driver was Tramel McClough, 46, of East Palo Alto, one of the two escaped inmates.

The passenger, identified by the CHP as 47-year-old John Bivins, jumped into the driver’s seat of the Explorer and drove southbound on Trinity Parkway. Just south of McAuliffe Road, an officer opened fire on Bivins, who turned around and headed northbound on Trinity Parkway, according to the CHP.

As of Wednesday afternoon, authorities remained in an active manhunt for Bivins, an East Palo Alto resident. He was last seen in the green Ford Explorer with the license plate 7TTY505. A surveillance image was released of someone believed to Bivins with the vehicle at a gas station in Thornton, a town about 20 miles north of Stockton. A canvass of local hospitals did not turn up any gunshot victims who might be linked to the shots fired at the SUV, Glennon said.

On the morning of Nov. 6, McClough and Bivins apparently used a smuggled key to get out of their restraints and ran out of the Palo Alto courthouse through an unmonitored door. They got into a waiting late-1980s Toyota Corolla, which drove them a few blocks away to a waiting UHaul van, which they used to continue fleeing. Two people suspected of helping the men escape — Marquita Kirk, 44, of Sunnyvale and Rene Hunt, 54, of East Palo Alto — have been arrested.

McClough and Bivins went on the lam as they were being prosecuted for the armed robbery of a Sunnyvale Verizon store in February. McClough is a potential three-striker facing life in prison for robbery with a gun, and is charged with nine felonies, according to court records. Bivins has eight charges, seven of which are felonies including hit-and-run, and could get more than 10 years behind bars if convicted.

Anyone with information about Bivins or the SUV he was driving is asked to call 911.