Authorities Seek Aid in Finding Escaped California Prisoners

Authorities Seek Aid in Finding Escaped California Prisoners
A window of the Santa Clara County Jail where inmates cut through the bars and escaped on Wednesday. Santa Clara County Sheriff via AP
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SAN JOSE, Calif.—Authorities asked for the public’s help in tracking down a pair of potentially dangerous California prisoners who cut through the bars of a jail window on Thanksgiving Eve, rappelled to the ground on a bedsheet rope and escaped.

Santa Clara County sheriff’s Sgt. Rich Glennon said four inmates got out through a second-floor window of the county’s main jail late Wednesday and two were captured almost immediately.

Authorities released photos of the severed bars and the bedsheet tied to one of them, but said they didn’t know what tools the inmates used or how they had gotten them.

“No cutting instruments were located inside the cell or in the surrounding area,” Glennon said.

He identified the men who escaped as Rogelio Chavez and Laron Campbell.

Chavez, 33, and Campbell, 26, are facing possible life sentences if convicted of burglary, extortion, false imprisonment and other charges they were being held on.

Laron Campbell. (Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office via AP)
Laron Campbell. Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office via AP