3 Sought in Juvenile Hall Escape : Crime: A 17-year-old armed robbery suspect is freed by two teen-agers who may have had a key. Security measures at the facility are questioned.

Two armed teen-agers entered a juvenile hall on the Eastside--possibly with a key--freed an inmate and fired a gun at a security guard as they fled, authorities said Wednesday.

No one was injured in the escape Tuesday night at Central Juvenile Hall in Lincoln Heights. The two accomplices and the escapee, a 17-year-old accused of armed robbery, were still at large Wednesday.

Central Juvenile Hall is the largest of three in the county probation system, housing the most dangerous teen-age inmates--those being tried as adults for murder and other felonies.

In recent years, it has been the scene of at least three other escapes, the most recent in July when three youths being held in a disciplinary unit jimmied open a window and scaled a wall. The most dramatic escape occurred in 1990 when someone used a car to crash through a fence and free six young men who were outside during a recreation period.

The escape Tuesday of Jesus Gonzales left police and probation officials questioned how a key to the facility might have been obtained, how the intruders got into Gonzales’ room--which was supposed to be locked--and why Gonzales’ roommate was not in the room at the time of the breakout.

It also left at least one Central Juvenile Hall employee angry that tighter security precautions are not taken at a facility that houses what he called “some of the most sophisticated young criminals in the city.”

“They treat these prisoners like we are in the 1950s,” said the employee, complaining that security guards at the facility are unarmed. “These are the 1990s and these are murderers.”

The employee, who spoke on the condition that his name not be used, said the inmates can make daily, court-ordered phone calls and have ample opportunity to plan escapes. Paul Higa, chief of juvenile institutions for the Probation Department, confirmed that the guards who patrol the grounds at the Central Juvenile Hall are not allowed to carry guns.

He said the facility has no tighter security than Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey and San Fernando Valley Juvenile Hall in Sylmar, even though 140 of Central’s current 640 inmates are classified as “unfit minors,” meaning they are charged with the most serious of crimes. One hundred of the 140 are accused of murder, Higa said.

Officials, he said, are examining the security arrangements at Central as a result of the latest escape.

“This incident requires us to consider a number of different options,” Higa said. “Clearly in terms of intruders, our best bet is to better be able to protect the perimeter” of the facility.

The escape occurred just after 11 p.m. Tuesday after inmates had gone to bed for the night, Higa and police said.

Apparently, no one saw the intruders when they entered or when they removed Gonzales from his room, but police are investigating reports that they had a key.

On their way out of the facility, the suspects encountered an unarmed security guard who was patrolling in a car. The guard later told police that he heard a gunshot and retreated in his car. His superiors also ordered him by radio to leave the scene, said Lt. Richard Ortiz of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Ortiz said police are investigating a report that an employee at Central was kidnaped by the two intruders Tuesday night before the escape and had his keys taken from him. He discounted reports from other employees that the suspects took the keys to the facility from a supervisor during a carjacking about two weeks ago.