Disappearing ‘Rabbits’

Jim Elvington knew the escapee was out there somewhere--crouching in a ditch, hiding in the tall grass or perhaps even peering down from the trees. He also knew his best hope of finding him was to look directly at the ground.

“Right now we don’t know what his tracks look like, we only know that he was wearing boots,” Elvington said without lifting his eyes from the roadside gravel. “That’s the way it is. Sometimes you just don’t have a lot to go on.”

An experienced tracker with the Santa Clarita Valley Search and Rescue Team, Elvington arrived at the Pitchess Detention Center just after sunrise Saturday. He spent much of the morning scouring the dirt for the elusive print that would put his group on the trail of the escaped convict.

But not an actual convict. The escapee, or “rabbit,” was actually a military volunteer acting out the role. On Saturday, nine rabbits were pursued by about 70 search and rescue team members and trainees, Explorers and airmen from Edwards Air Force Base. The volunteers came from as far as Lancaster and Altadena to participate in the annual training exercise staged by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department’s Santa Clarita station.

Nine search teams, each with their own assignment, set out to find people pretending to be escaped prisoners, lost campers or a missing deputy. The exercise was designed to teach the trainees some of the rudiments of tracking, detection and search management and to let more experienced searchers sharpen their skills.

The tally at the end of the day was not great--only two of the nine rabbits were found--but officials said the drill was designed to be difficult.

And despite concerns by some local residents and town officials that the mock escape might alarm residents who were unaware this was only a drill, sheriff’s officials said they received no calls about the exercise.

Sheriff’s Lt. Carl Deeley of the Santa Clarita station said that as a precaution the fake escapees were not outfitted in the blue jumpsuits that Pitchess prisoners wear. They were identifiable by the “X” on each of their shirts. They also were confined to about a four-square-mile area surrounding the detention center.

“The only thing the searchers really have to be worried about is the rattlesnakes and the heat,” Deeley said.

The drill started bright and early.

By 6:30 a.m. Saturday the Sheriff’s Department, under the guidance of Capt. Rick Byrum, had begun organizing a command post near an abandoned nursery.

“These people are on foot and we might not have a lot of time,” he told one group being sent after “lost hikers.”

Besides the two-legged searchers, the drill involved several canine teams and a volunteer posse of a half a dozen sheriff’s reserves on horseback.

Many of those at the Pitchess center Saturday have taken part in real searches, often in inclement weather where every hour can mean the difference between life and death.

“Sometimes you’re lucky. Sometimes you’re not,” said Bill Tibbitts, a 62-year-old engineer from Lancaster who took part in the unsuccessful search for missing Sheriff’s Deputy Jonathan Aujay, who disappeared June 11 in the Devil’s Punch Bowl area.

Like many of the volunteers, Tibbitts said a love of the outdoors and a desire to help others led him to join a search and rescue team.

It’s a serious commitment. Members buy most of their own equipment, participate in monthly training sessions and agree to be on call basically all the time. For this they get paid $1 per year by the Sheriff’s Department.

“A few years ago we found a gentleman and his three young children out by Big Pine,” Tibbitts said. “That was a very good feeling. That’s what it’s about.”

As a few curious prisoners looked on from the other side of the razor-wire fence, Elvington’s group pored over an area where members were told their “escapee” had last been seen.

It proved a fruitless search after nearly four hours under the sun.

“That’s the way it is with a real search and rescue. Not everyone can be in the right location,” Elvington, 52, a Santa Clarita electrician, said. “It can get a little frustrating but you have to remind yourself that you are helping out by eliminating that area.”

Unlike last year, when two “escapees” were found eating hamburgers at a local coffee shop, none this time made it off the Pitchess property.

Worn out from their hours under the sun, the searchers sat in the shade sipping cold drinks, eating hot dogs and swapping search stories before their 12:30 p.m. debriefing with Byrum.

“We faltered a bit at times but I think this was an excellent learning experience,” Byrum told the searchers. “The real purpose today was to find some tracks and figure out a lot of clues so when it’s time for a real search we’ll all be prepared.”