Escapee Captured; 3 Remain at Large : Jailbreak: More than 50 deputies continue search for Pitchess Honor Rancho fugitives. Antonovich blasts Sheriff’s Department.

Authorities on Monday captured one of 14 inmates who escaped from the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho in Newhall. That left three men still at large, including one murder suspect--and left officials demanding an explanation for the county’s largest jailbreak.

“There’s no excuse for inmates escaping from that facility,” said county Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who represents the region. “The Sheriff’s Department completely failed in their effort to protect the community.”

More than 50 deputies continued their search throughout the Santa Clarita Valley, although “as time progresses, there’s a greater and greater chance they made it out of the area,” Sheriff’s Capt. Jeff Springs said.

Ten of the inmates were captured Sunday morning within hours of their escape, discovered shortly after 3 a.m.

An 11th fugitive, Fernando Arroyo, 24, a narcotics suspect, was arrested about noon Monday, dressed in a soiled T-shirt and light blue undershorts. A construction worker in Newhall called sheriff’s deputies when Arroyo asked to use a telephone. He was spotted by authorities in a field across the street from the California Highway Patrol station in Newhall, about a mile from the Pitchess jail.

The three inmates who remain at large include murder suspect Eric M. Reed, 24, carjacking suspect Walter R. Padilla, 22, and Luis A. Galdamez, awaiting transfer to state prison on a manslaughter conviction.

Sheriff’s Deputy George Ducoulombier said a man matching Reed’s description, who was dressed in underwear and bleeding from minor injuries--apparently cuts from scaling the jail’s barbed wire fence--flagged down a driver Sunday morning on the Golden State Freeway near Magic Mountain.

“He said he had just been beaten and robbed,” Ducoulombier said. “Then he apparently asked for a ride to the central part of Los Angeles.”

Investigators have launched a search into the area where the motorist is believed to have dropped off that man.

Sheriff Sherman Block is expected to report his findings on the escape to supervisors today. .

Supervisor Antonovich said the slow pace of the state’s judicial system was partly to blame, with its huge backlog of criminal cases. He pointed out that two-thirds of the county’s jail inmates are people waiting for trials or sentencing.

The board last week passed a motion asking the state to reform the system so inmates can be moved more quickly to state prison.

“Hard-core criminals don’t belong in the County Jail,” Antonovich said.

Additional deputies were been assigned to the jail facility after the escape.

Sheriff’s Department officials said Monday they believe the jailbreak was planned in advance.

“When you have 14 inmates involved in one escape you probably have some communications taking place over several days,” Ducoulombier said.

The inmates apparently used a bunk bed to reach a 24-by-14-inch hole in the ceiling, believed to have been created in February during an inmate melee.

Sheriff’s officials had patched the hole with a piece of sheet metal and secured it with screws. But the inmates were able to remove the metal and escape into an air conditioning and heating duct. They were able to reach the roof by removing a screen, authorities said.

The men climbed a nearby 25-foot-high razor-wire fence using bedding and jail uniforms to cover the wire, and wearing socks as protective gloves. A sheriff’s deputy spotted four of the inmates near the fence during a routine check of the jail grounds.

Ducoulombier said his department is investigating the actions of the single deputy assigned to guard the 96 inmates during the escape.

“There was some type of disturbance during that time frame,” Ducoulombier said. “Whether or not it was a diversionary tactic we don’t know.”

“We have been taught a lesson, obviously, by the inmates,” said Sheriff’s Chief Mark Squiers, who is in charge of custody operations for northern Los Angeles County. “We will remedy the weaknesses.” He said the entire jail has been inspected for other possible escape routes and that officials are also considering other measures to boost security, including additional fencing.

The Board of Supervisors last fall allocated $4.3 million to the Sheriff’s Department to pay for projects that included construction of a second security fence around the minimum-security jail at Pitchess following numerous escapes by inmates.

So far, only a portion of the fence design has been finished for a jail building that was closed in March because of budget cuts, said Sharon Bunn, director of facilities administration for the Sheriff’s Department.

In nearby Santa Clarita, many residents said they were not too worried about the escape. “I can tell you right now that the Santa Clarita Valley is one of the safest places to be right now,” said Lori Howard, a justice deputy for Antonovich. “The rest of us should be scared because all of our deputies are up there now.”

Tips poured in to the sheriff’s Santa Clarita substation, leading deputies on at least a dozen mostly fruitless searches throughout the Santa Clarita Valley.

Residents of a trailer park on Hasley Canyon Road about a mile from the jail spotted a man believed to be Galdamez, carrying a bag of oranges and wearing a T-shirt and shorts about 9 a.m.

Sheriff’s deputies then searched the hills around the park with horses, helicopters and bloodhounds for two hours, but they were not able to locate the man.

With several inmates still on the loose, Val Verde resident Jean Poulin said she kept her daughters Erin, 7, and Britany, 6, home from school Monday.

“I was afraid because if (the inmates) know the area they know there’s poor people here and they could blend in easier,” Poulin said.