Man’s Jail Garb Sparks Chase, Lock-Down

CASTAIC — It’s probably never a good idea to wear Los Angeles County Jail pants into a convenience store in this town.

Castaic sits adjacent to the vast Pitchess jail compound, and its residents are used to keeping an eye out for escapees. So when Jose Gonzales, 22, of Pico Rivera stepped into a minimarket here wearing a pair of the jail-issue bottoms Sunday afternoon, the law was immediately summoned.

This set off a chain of events that included a helicopter and car chase, a jail lock-down and the arrest of Gonzales, but not for being an escaped convict.

It was about 3:15 p.m. when Gonzales was spotted in a Mobil gas station and convenience store, about two miles from the Pitchess Detention Center, wearing dark blue pants clearly stamped “L.A. County Jail” on one leg and a back pocket, said Lt. Daniel Castillo of the Santa Clarita sheriff’s station.

As Gonzales left the store and got into a gray GMC van, a store clerk had a customer jot down the vehicle’s license plate number. The clerk called the Sheriff’s Department and the chase was on.

Sheriff’s patrol cars, a sheriff’s helicopter and California Highway Patrol vehicles began searching the nearby Golden State Freeway for the van. Meanwhile, Pitchess officials went into a lock-down and initiated a head count.

Back on the freeway, traffic had come to a halt, but not because of the big chase. As luck would have it, a big rig had jackknifed just south of Castaic, backing up traffic for several miles.

The van was spotted by the CHP and pulled over without incident near Calgrove Boulevard, said Castillo. Inside were seven people, none wearing prison garb.

But officers spotted the pants under a seat, and Gonzales told officers he had been wearing them, Castillo said.

Gonzales explained that he had grabbed the jail garb from the family laundry pile that morning, Castillo said.

A check of records showed that Gonzales was not an escapee, and Pitchess reported all inmates present and accounted for.

That might have been the end of the incident, except that the name Jose Gonzales was not a stranger to police computers.

“We checked him for warrants and he had warrants,” Castillo said. Two were for driving without a license and one was for speeding.

Gonzales was taken to the station, where he was held on the warrants. As of Sunday night, he had not been issued jail clothes.

This was not the first time a conscientious local citizen thought he had spotted an escapee, Castillo said.

Several months ago sheriff’s deputies got a report that an individual in the Castaic area was spotted wearing a bright orange top that resembled jail clothing. “We went to check it out and it turned out to be a DWP worker’s uniform,” Castillo said.