LONGVIEW (KYTX) — Two Gregg County jail workers are recovering at home tonight after they got hurt during a struggle with an inmate. CBS 19's Abby Broyles shows us how the sheriff's office says it all happened and what charges that inmate is now facing.
A specially trained group called an extraction team headed to a cell around 7:45 Thursday night at the Gregg County Jail. The sheriff says 33-year old Cedric Duwayne Ward stopped up the toilet, flooded his cell and would not cooperate.
"The CERT team uses a shield so that the inmate can be pushed up against a wall and restrained," Sheriff Maxey Cerliano said.
The sheriff says four men on the extraction team were trying to restrain ward when he bit two of the officers on the hands, one of them on the leg.
"And then one officer actually fell over a stool that was secured at a desk and so he suffered a rib injury," Sheriff Cerliano said.
But that didn't stop officers from getting ward under control. They moved him to another cell and paramedics treated the officers – one on site, one at the hospital.
"We don't have these incidents happen very often but we are prepared when they do happen," Cerliano said.
Deputies booked Ward into jail earlier this month for assault. He now faces two more felony counts for assaulting a public servant. He could also have privileges taken away after a pending disciplinary hearing for misconduct within the jail.
"Such as use of telephone privileges, visitation, access to commissary, there's a number of things that can be removed that are privileges not rights," Cerliano said.
The sheriff's department tells us the injured officers are recovering at home and will return to work Monday. Ward remains in the Gregg County Jail tonight. A judge raised his bond to $110,000 in light of the new charges. The sheriff's department says all of the officers followed protocol in handling the incident.
