Photo: Stock Image
In a case that may be attributed to the nation’s current low unemployment rate—good help being hard to find—on the evening of January 25, 2024 30-year-old Oxnard area transient Jonathan Vega Alfaro walked away from his job as an inmate kitchen worker at the Ventura County Jail just after dinner was served to the facility’s residents.
According to Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Jamal Clark, Alfaro, in custody pending the disposition of the felony charges which put him in jail awaiting his court date, had been outside the kitchen and was “last seen on the loading dock” of the jail” and then missed the inmate count that evening. The response of the jail custody staff was immediate (if not somewhat agitated as well), with patrol deputies promptly put on notice. “A significant patrol response” ensued and involved officers of the Ventura City Police Department as well as uniformed VCSD patrol units.
The widening search on the night of January 25th failed to locate Alfaro and the following week was one punctuated by “numerous tips from citizens who reported possible sightings” of anyone walking around wearing an orange jumpsuit. But, as is their wont and duty, the cops never stopped looking for Alfaro.
