Article said he was wearing orange prison jumpsuit but shedding it after escaping. It sounds like he had regular clothes on underneath.
This is not the first time HoCo has had prisoners escape. My guess is they were on their way to the psych eval which, IIRC from another case, doesn't want prisoners handcuffed...
He was a DOC inmate, so this was, likely, a MD Corrections prisoner transport van, not Howard County.