SAN QUENTIN, Calif. — California authorities were hunting an inmate Thursday who walked away from San Quentin State Prison and is believed to have carjacked a vehicle overnight.
Shalom Mendoza, 21, was last seen at the prison before 6 p.m. Wednesday and reported missing after 9:30 p.m. Wednesday. He fled from an unfenced minimum-security dormitory outside the prison walls, prison spokesman Sgt. Robert Gardea said.
Mendoza is believed to have carjacked a victim in a Home Depot parking lot less than a mile from the prison after 9 p.m., fleeing in a silver Toyota RAV4 with California license plate number 6STZ502, San Rafael police said.
They said a man with a similar physical description to Mendoza, last seen wearing a white T-shirt and khaki or light-yellow pants, motioned to the victim as if he had a weapon or gun under his shirt. He then threatened to kill her and demanded her car keys, but she was not injured.
Mendoza was sentenced to prison a year ago to serve a five-year term for using a deadly weapon during a Los Angeles County carjacking and evading or attempting to evade police while driving recklessly.
He arrived at San Quentin in April and was assigned to a minimum-security inmate work crew in May, Gardea said. The dormitory is guarded day and night, but it is outside the main prison walls, he said.
San Quentin is California’s oldest prison, opening in 1852. It houses more than 4,100 inmates, including those on death row.
