Local News in Brief : 2 Inmates Escape From Pitchess Honor Rancho

Two inmates at the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho in Castaic escaped separately Monday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reported Tuesday.

Don Goins, 28, of Lancaster, walked away from a welding job, Lt. John Samuel said. Goins, a convicted drunk driver, had served 21 days of a 150-day sentence in the minimum-security section of the jail, he said.

Most of the 2,300 minimum-security inmates at the prison are often out of deputies’ sight while on work assignments, Samuel said. They walk away on an average of “one or less a month,” he said.

The second inmate, Anthony Lopez, 31, cut his way to freedom through two 14-foot chain-link fences at the rancho’s medium-security section, Lt. Ray Gonzales said. Lopez, a transient, was awaiting trial on a burglary charge and was to appear April 22 in Huntington Park Municipal Court, he said.