By Juliana A. Torres

An inmate, who is a documented gang member and currently charged with attempted murder, escaped from the Osceola County Jail Friday morning and is on the run.

Osceola County Sheriff’s Office deputies were summoned to the jail around 6:31 a.m. with the call that Michael Jamal Rigby, 21, had escaped. Deputies set a perimeter around the jail to try to catch Rigby, but released it later in the morning without finding him.

“We have reason to believe he’s no longer in the area,” Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Twis Lizasuain said. “Deputies located his jail-issued uniform, so he might be wearing plain clothes.”

Rigby was involved in a Poinciana incident July 11 where his girlfriend tried to stab his ex-girlfriend with a fork and then shot her in the arm. Rigby shot at the vehicle the woman was riding in as she tried to escape from the Poinciana party, celebrating the birthday of Rigby’s girlfriend, Kayla Margarit Vazquez, who also was charged with attempted murder.

Rigby also is accused of later breaking into the home of one of the witnesses at the party, threatening the residents harm if they talked about what happened.

He was arrested for the armed robbery of a CVS pharmacy in 2008, for which he was later convicted of attempted robbery. He also reportedly was involved in an invasion of a Poinciana home in 2007, where a resident was stabbed and another pistol-whipped.

While how Rigby escaped eventually will be investigated, the top priority is to find him, Lizasuain said.

“We’re asking the citizens to call us with any and all information they have about him,” she said.

An escape alert has been issued for the surrounding counties. Rigby is a black male, about 5 feet 11 inches tall weighing 170 pounds.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Sheriff’s Office at 407-348-2222 or anonymously through Crimeline at 800-423-TIPS. Tips that lead to felony arrests are eligible for cash rewards up to $1,000.