2 Inmates Cut Through Fence to Make Escape

Two inmates used bolt cutters Monday morning to cut through fences at an Orange County Sheriff’s detention center and escape in a waiting car, officials said.

Sheriff’s deputies were searching for Arturo Garcia, 25, of Long Beach and Pedro Jacobo, 33, of Sun Valley, both in custody for a robbery in Santa Ana in December 1996, according to Sheriff’s Lt. Ron Wilkerson.

The two men cut through two fences at the Theo Lacy Detention Center at 501 City Drive South between 8:15 and 9 a.m., Wilkerson said. The last escape from the 1,600-bed facility was in 1993.

The large bolt cutters apparently had been thrown over the fence earlier by an accomplice, Wilkerson said.

“This was obviously well planned,” he said.

Witnesses told deputies they saw two men in jail jumpsuits get into a 1988 or 1989 two-door, gray Toyota Tercel with chrome wheel rims and a lowered chassis.

The car was waiting on a shoulder of the westbound Garden Grove Freeway in Santa Ana, which is separated from the facility by a riverbed, Wilkerson said.

The car had a stolen license plate with the number 3BWE101, Wilkerson said.

Garcia and Jacobo were awaiting sentencing, Wilkerson said. Neither has an extensive history of violent crime, although records show Jacobo has a prior assault conviction, he said.

Garcia is 5 feet, 10 inches tall and 200 pounds. Jacobo is 5 feet, 2 inches tall and 130 pounds. Both have black hair and brown eyes.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of the escapees is asked to call sheriff’s investigators at (714) 647-7040.