2 Inmates Escape From Honor Rancho : Jails: They carjack a truck from two students parked near Magic Mountain. No one is hurt, but the men remain at large.

Two inmates escaped from Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho Tuesday night, making their way to a Hilton hotel about five miles away and then carjacking a pickup truck from two college students in the parking lot, authorities said.

No one was injured in the carjacking, which occurred near the Magic Mountain theme park.

The escapees, who are still at large, have been identified by sheriff’s deputies as Jesus Guerrero, 23, who was in prison on a narcotics charge, and Mario Garate, 19, who was serving time for spousal abuse.

Both are from Los Angeles and both were soon to be transferred to a higher-security facility because they had caused trouble among other inmates at Pitchess, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Gabe Ramirez.

The escape occurred between 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. from a processing center in a minimum security area where about 200 other inmates were gathered, Sheriff’s Lt. Steve Dolan said.

Between the processing center and the outside of the prison is an open compound protected by a razor wire fence.

“How they got over the fence I don’t know,” Dolan said.

Scott Mabs, 20, said he and his girlfriend, Rachel Madon, 19, were sitting in the truck in the hotel parking lot when they saw two men wearing prison-issue orange pants come out of nearby bushes and approach them shortly after 11 p.m.

Mabs and Madon are students at The Master’s College, a Christian school in Newhall. They had parked in a quiet area of the lot near the Hilton Garden Inn so they could have a private, prayer devotional, Mabs said.

“We had just got done praying and everything, and these guys came up,” he said Wednesday.

*

Mabs said the inmates greeted him and walked by the truck. “They looked really weird,” he said. “I could tell there was something really different about them.” Mabs said he rolled up the truck windows and locked the doors.

The men came back a few minutes later and motioned Mabs to roll down his window. He refused and the inmates began gesturing to two pairs of dress pants hanging from a hook in the truck’s window, Mabs said.

When Mabs refused to give them the clothing, the two men began banging on the driver’s side window, apparently trying to break it, he said.

“If I would have thought about (driving away) when they were 10 feet away, I would have done it,” Mabs said. “But I felt if I had done it while they were close it would have caused more problems.

“They might have broken the window or jumped in the back of the truck.”

Mabs said he opened the door and got out of the truck, pulling Madon out of the driver’s side door with him. He was able to grab a few personal possessions before the inmates climbed in and drove off, he said.

The truck is a white, 1986 Mazda pickup with California license plate number 3D81629. Mabs said the clothes he left in the truck might be a bit tight on the inmates because he is thinner than the two men.

Both inmates are in their early 20s, about 5 feet 10 inches tall and between 160 and 180 pounds, according to sheriff’s officials.

Guerrero was arrested June 25 by Los Angeles Police Department officers and was scheduled for release Feb. 8, Ramirez said. Garate was arrested by Los Angeles police Aug. 17 and was scheduled for release April 9.

Both men were initially housed at the minimum-security facility, but were moved to the medium-security section of Pitchess because of problems with other inmates, Dolan said. The two men were scheduled to be transferred to the Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles. They would then be assigned to a high-security facility at Pitchess or another county jail.

Last year there were 34 escapes from Pitchess, nearly all from the minimum-security section, according to sheriff’s officials. Most of the escapees simply walked away unnoticed from supervised outdoor work assignments.

About half of the inmates were recaptured before they make it past the razor wire guarding Pitchess, and most of the others were recaptured soon afterward, Pitchess officials said.

There have been no successful escapes from the jail’s high-security facilities, officials said.

No local residents were harmed in the escapes. But earlier this year a 29-year-old inmate awaiting trial for robbery escaped and broke into the house of a woman living nearby, taking her jewelry and car.

He was recaptured by deputies the next day at a Palmdale motel.

That incident prompted several calls from worried residents living near the jail in the unincorporated town of Castaic, said Greg Ferrier, a member of the Castaic Town Council.

“I had some people very upset,” he said, adding that he is expecting more reaction over the recent incident.

“When they find out these guys hijacked a vehicle from a couple of kids near Magic Mountain,” Ferrier said, “I’m going to hear about it.”