Escaped prisoners on the run in California may be hiding in Little Saigon

The World
Three escaped inmates from Orange County jail remain on the run.

In southern California, three escaped prison inmates are still on the run.

They're the ones who sawed through steel bars and rappelled off a roof using ropes made of sheets to break out of a maximum security jail last week. 

Two of the three are Vietnamese so police have reached out to the Vietnamese community in for help locating the three inmates. All three escapees were awaiting trial for violent crimes — and are considered dangerous.

Watch: Officials call on local Vietnamese community for help

Officials think the three escapees, Jonathan Tieu, 20, Bac Duong, 43, and Hossein Nayeri, 37, may be hiding in Orange County's Little Saigon.

"If their motive is to fit in — and I think it would be — this is the perfect place to hang out," one high school student told  Los Angeles Times reporter Ahn Do, who has has been out talking with people in the community.

Do says many people she talked with in the Vietnamese community are on edge.  She says “some folks are worried that if the fugitives are desperate and in need of quick money, they could just jump out and hold people hostage.” Others are busy trying figure out how they escaped or trying to guess where the felons are headed.

After four days on the loose, Do says “there’s some talk that they could but well be on their way to Bangkok by now, using Thailand as a gateway into Vietnam.”

But Orange County police investigating the escapes said on Monday that police have no evidence to suggest the men fled California, much less the country.

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