By Donald W. Meyers
Yakima Herald-Republic, Wash.
YAKIMA, Wash. — A Yakima County jail inmate is accused of stabbing a corrections officer in the neck with a pencil Friday.
Erik Anthony Anguiano-Herrera, 25, was going to be transferred to Eastern State Hospital after being deemed incompetent to stand trial on second-degree malicious mischief and criminal trespass charges at the time of the incident.
A corrections officer was doing a walkthrough of the jail housing unit when Angiano-Herrera asked him about using a phone, according to a probable cause affidavit filed by the Yakima County Sheriff’s Office. When the officer told him to talk to his sergeant, Angiano-Herrera stabbed the officer in the right side of his neck with the pencil, the affidavit said.
The officer had a pea-sized wound on his right neck an inch below his jaw, the affidavit said. The officer was taken to Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital and was expected to be back at work Monday night, corrections Chief Bill Splawn said.
Anguiano-Herrera is being held on suspicion of first-degree assault.
During a preliminary appearance hearing, Yakima County Superior Court Judge Richard Bartheld maintained the $50,000 bail that was set over the weekend.
Anguiano-Herrera, listed as a transient, was initially arrested in July after police said he went inside a downtown building and smashed a plate-glass window from the inside.