DELANO, Calif. (KGET) -- Helicopters, heavy police presence, and schools on lockdown marked a second day of a search in Delano for escaped killer Cesar Moises Hernandez. Hernandez escaped from a gated parking lot where inmates are transferred into the Delano courthouse. A day later, a heavy police presence in Delano with officers sweeping the streets and knocking on doors. Dakota Salazar works across the street where Hernandez escaped and missed him by mere seconds. Delano Union School District campuses closed Dec. 4 as convicted killer remains on the loose "I see a police officer pull up to the gate here and another police officer ... he yells at him and he's like 'Hey! Did you guys get him?'" Salazar said. "As soon as I hear that, the sheriff looks our way and he's like 'Hey, can you guys go inside?'" Salazar says she watches inmates from her office often, and knew right away what had happened. "Where all those cars are, there's like bushes there, and then I saw them kind of just with their feet kind of like scattering, trying to look for something," Salazar said. "I'm like 'Oh my God.' He must've had some type of tool to like get free." Hernandez escaped at 10:40 a.m. but residents received no alerts about it. Employees from a business across the other side of the courthouse learned what happened about 20 minutes later, surveillance video shows when police came over to search for Hernandez. RELATED: Convicted killer escapes from CDCR custody at Delano courthouse: officials "Yeah, it's shocking that how could an inmate just get away like that?" said Elissa Lara. "Why weren't they cuffed? And how is he just going to run out? A murderer is on the loose." "I'm like, paranoid because I'm like, what if he comes out?" said Maribel Hernandez. Hernandez was serving a sentence of 25-years to life for a first-degree murder out of Los Angeles County. He was convicted in 2019 and sent to North Kern State Prison. He was set to appear in court Monday after pleading no contest to manufacturing a weapon and possessing alcohol or drugs in prison. Delano residents 17 News spoke with were not confident he's going to be found. Never miss a story: Make KGET.com your homepage "I think somebody was waiting for him because walking and running he wasn't going to get far," Lara said. "He had to have somebody around the corner to pick him up and just take him to his destination." Delano police has directed all questions to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. CDCR would say only that its agents "continue to actively search and gather intelligence as they investigate the case" and said updates will be provided through social media. Late Tuesday, the Delano Union School District said all of its campuses will be closed as the search continues.