Kentucky man assaulted officer here. Now, he allegedly gave Texas cop ‘massive head trauma.’

A Bowling Green man was caught by authorities Monday ten hours after he was accused of severely beating a Texas police officer, according to media reports.

A Sour Lake Police Department officer responded Monday to a Valera gas station for a call about a man loitering, according to KFDM. When the officer of the Texas town about 75 miles northeast of Houston arrived, he was allegedly attacked by 45-year-old Bradley Joseph Pruitt, from Bowling Green, the Beaumont Enterprise reported.

Pruitt beat and caused “massive head trauma” to the officer, 59-year-old William McKeon, KFDM reported. A bystander and an off-duty police officer tried to stop the assault, but Pruitt pulled McKeon’s gun on them and fled in his police cruiser, according to the Beaumont Enterprise.

“You hear the word ‘senseless crime,’ but this is really a classic example,” Hardin County (Texas) Sheriff Mark Davis told the Beaumont Enterprise.

Pruitt was captured by Texas Department of Public Safety Highway Patrol after a 10-hour manhunt when he was trying to cross the road not far from where he ditched the police car, KTXS 12 News reported.

The officer has a broken jaw, broken sinus cavity, eye socket and vertebrae, 12 News said. He was in critical condition and will require several surgeries, according to KTXS 12 News.

It’s not the first time Pruitt has been accused of having a physical altercation with an officer. In 2015 in Kentucky, he was convicted in Warren County on two counts of third-degree assault (police officer/probation officer) and resisting arrest, according to court records. He was sentenced to two years for the assault charges and 11 months for resisting arrest, records show.

He did not serve the full sentence; he was released from prison in April 2016, according to the court file.

According to KFDM, Pruitt also was wanted by the Las Cruces, N.M., district attorney’s office for failure to appear in a possession of a firearm case.

In his latest arrest, Pruitt has been charged with aggravated assault with serious bodily injury of a public servant, two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, felon in possession of a firearm and evading. The bonds total $4 million, the Beaumont Enterprise reported.

This story was originally published May 30, 2019 at 10:21 AM.