Page 35 - atoday
P. 35
U.S. NEWS A3
Wednesday 27 January 2016
At Press Time:
Police search California communities where inmates have ties
AMY TAXIN tion and Customs Enforce- This image shows three jail inmates who escaped from the Central Men’s Jail in Santa Ana, Calif.
GILLIAN FLACCUS ment said in a statement. The men from left are Hossein Nayeri, Jonathan Tieu, and Bac Duong.
Associated Press The statement did not say
SANTA ANA, California (AP) why. Duong checked in (Orange County Sheriff’s Department via AP)
— Unlike similar escapes with federal immigration
where dangerous inmates officials as required until how the men could plan Kevin Tamez, a managing that consults on prison se-
fled into rural areas, the August 2014, the statement and execute their escape partner for MPM Group, curity, management and
three men who broke out of said. U.S. officials can’t de- with such precision, said a Philadelphia-based firm infrastructure.q
a Southern California lock- tain immigrants indefinitely
up escaped into densely while they await deporta-
populated suburban com- tion and must release most
munities where they have after six months. Under a
close ties. 2008 agreement, Vietnam
Hundreds of officers are fo- will provide travel docu-
cusing on neighborhoods ments to help repatriate
where the trio charged with immigrants but only those
violent crimes could be hid- who entered the U.S. af-
ing among friends, family ter July 1995. The three in-
or fellow gang members, mates were gone for as
particularly among Orange long as 16 hours before
County’s huge Vietnamese officials noticed they were
population, authorities said missing from the com-
Tuesday, the fourth day of mon dorm they share with
the manhunt. more than 60 other in-
It is just a few miles from the mates at Orange County
jail where the trio broke out Central Jail. An attack on
Friday, and two of the in- a guard delayed a Friday
mates, Jonathan Tieu, 20, night head count by hours.
Bac Duong, 43, have deep The trio sawed through a
ties to the community, quarter-inch-thick grill on
which is among the larg- a dormitory wall, got into
est in the U.S.Tieu, Duong plumbing tunnels and then
and Hossein Nayeri, 37, are sawed through half-inch-
considered dangerous and thick steel bars as they
all were awaiting trial for made their way behind
separate violent felonies, walls to an unguarded
authorities said. They have area of a roof atop a five-
now each been charged story building. The sheriff’s
with the escape. department has been slow
Tieu had been held since to add more rooftop secu-
2013, accused of murder rity cameras at the jail de-
and attempted murder. spite a grand jury’s recom-
Duong faced attempted mendations for eight years
murder and assault charg- straight, according to a re-
es in the shooting of a man port Monday in the Orange
on his front porch. Nayeri County Register (http://bit.
was arrested in 2014 on ly/1OLYVow ). The depart-
charges including kidnap- ment has said since 2008
ping and torture. Authori- that budget constraints
ties said he abducted a prevented upgrades to the
marijuana dealer, burned camera systems at the five
him with a blow torch and county jails.
cut off his penis because The escape was eerily simi-
Nayeri thought the man lar to one last year in New
had buried money in the York, where two inmates
desert. Duong was ordered cut through a portion of a
deported to Vietnam in wall hidden under a bunk
1998 but remained in the bed and used piping and
country and racked up a tunnels inside the facility to
lengthy criminal record, im- get out. But the search for
migration officials said Tues- the pair focused on nearby
day. Duong came to the woods instead of a dense
United States legally in 1991 urban population.
but was ordered removed A major question for Cali-
seven years later, Immigra- fornia investigators will be
