Authorities Search for 3 Californian Inmates who Cut through Wire, Metal to Escape
Californian authorities are searching for the three inmates from the Central Men's Jail in Santa Ana who carried out an elaborate escape plan that involved cutting through wire and metal.
The men, Jonathan Tieu, 20, Bac Duong, 43, and Hossein Nayeri, 37 are considered to be dangerous and could possibly have weapons. Tieu was held since October 2013 on a $1 million bond for a murder charge that could have been gang-related. Duong was being held without bail since last month for the possibility of being tied to an attempted murder and Nayeri was accused of kidnapping and torturing a man back in 2012.
The authorities are offering $50,000 in rewards for information that can help them recapture the men. People with information should call the hotline, (714) 628-7085. To report any sightings of the men, call 911.
"There's people out there that know who these people are, who may have seen them. We're asking for phone calls, whether it's any piece of information you may have," Orange County sheriff's LT. Jeff Hallock said, reported by ABC News "We're exhausting every lead that we currently have,"
The authorities are also in the midst of an investigation with the hopes of uncovering how the men were able to escape and whether or not they had help from inside and/or outside of the prison.
"We're going to take a look at everybody who may have been assigned there," Hallock said. "What I can assure you is that the compromises in security have been shored up."
According to the county sheriff's officials, the men are believed to have vanished after the 5 a.m. head count at the maximum security facility on Friday. The guards, however, did not realize that the inmates were missing until later that night at around 9 p.m. when they were doing their nightly headcount, which was conducted later than usual due to an earlier inmate fight. The authorities do not know if the fight was tied to the breakout.
The officials stated that the three men first cut through the grill on their dormitory wall to enter into the prison's plumbing tunnels. They all lived in the same dormitory, which also housed 65 other inmates.
They then used tools to cut through steel bars that were half-an-inch thick and ended up on the roof of the building, which is not guarded. The men moved aside the razor wire and used linens that they had carefully tied together to lower themselves onto the ground floor.
"We're talking about breaching, in some places, significant amounts of steel, rebar and metal," Hallock said.
"Escapes do occur from time to time," Sheriff Sandra Hutchens explained. "We try and limit that. We learn from the mistakes. I can tell you that this is a very sophisticated-looking operation. People in jail have a lot of time to sit around and think about ways to defeat our systems."
The jail, which was built in 1968 and houses about 900 inmates, has dealt with two escapes before. These escapes, however, occurred more than decades ago and none of the staff that was working then is currently at the jail.
