Jan. 28--Five gang members have been arrested as part of the investigation into a jailbreak at Orange County's largest lockup, but police have yet to locate the three men who escaped from the Men's Central Jail in Santa Ana last week, Sheriff Sandra Hutchens said Wednesday.
It was not clear what role, if any, those arrested played in the escape, but law enforcement officials have been pressuring local gangs ever since Jonathan Tieu, Bac Duong and Hossein Nayeri broke out and disappeared Friday.
Hutchens said some of the men were affiliated with the same street gang as Tieu. Others knew the inmates, or were arrested because of probation violations, she said.
The sheriff did not release the names of those arrested, or say what charges they face.
Hutchens also said she believes Nayeri, a 37-year-old inmate with a military background who was awaiting trial in a torture plot, masterminded the escape.
Sheriff's officials have turned their attention to the local Vietnamese community in recent days, based on Tieu and Duong's possible ties to the Little Saigon section of Westminster and Garden Grove. Aside from his gang ties, Tieu also lived in the neighborhood. Duong was a Vietnamese national who entered the United States legally in 1991.
Hutchens said she was interviewed on local Vietnamese radio and television stations on Wednesday, and police previously made pleas for the public's help in locating the suspects in English and Vietnamese during a news briefing earlier this week.
Hutchens also announced changes to the jail's head count policies, which have been heavily criticized in recent days.
The trio broke out of a fourth-floor dormitory that housed 65 other inmates on Friday morning, but the escape went undetected for at least 16 hours.
Deputies conduct physical head counts of inmates only twice a day in Orange County, a practice that has drawn stark criticism from corrections experts. Three other checks -- described as "paper checks" that involve reviewing records to account for inmates movements to educational classes, medical facilities or court -- are conducted between the physical checks, but those failed to detect the escape.
Deputies will now be required to call those alternate locations to ensure an inmate is there as part of the "paper checks," Hutchens said.
She also continued to defend the decision to house the three men in dormitory-style housing, rather than in individual cells, despite the fact that all three were awaiting trial on violent crimes.
"We house based on behavior and there were no issues with Mr. Nayeri, with any of these individuals, while they were in our custody," she said. "In terms of the count, that was a breakdown, and we are looking at who helped these individuals because they did have help."
Hutchens said the jail does have individual cells, but normally reserves those for transgender inmates or other prisoners who must be separated from the general population.
Nayeri had fled the U.S. to avoid prosecution twice before. Tieu was awaiting trial on a 2011 gangland murder, and Duong was charged with attempted murder late in 2015. Corrections experts have said the men should not have been housed in a group setting.
Deputies have been unable to recover the tools the men used to cut through at least four layers of steel, metal and rebar during their daring escape, said Hutchens, who remained convinced the inmates needed help to gain access to the devices necessary to cut through those kinds of materials.
"It's not something we think could have occurred with a jail made shank, if you will," she said.
After cutting their way through plumbing tunnels and an air duct, the men ascended to the roof of the jailhouse, where they used a makeshift rope of knotted bed sheets and cloth to rappel down the side of the building.
They haven't been seen since.
"It's every sheriff's nightmare," Hutchens said.
