CLALLAM BAY — The Clallam Bay Corrections Center entered its second day of lockdown today as a corrections officer attacked by an inmate Monday recovered at home following his discharge from Olympic Medical Center.
Carlos Avalos, 19, remained isolated in the prison’s Intensive Management Unit after he reportedly stabbed a corrections officer, who has not been identified, with a “pointed object,” state Department of Corrections spokeswoman Norah West said today.
Earlier information from the Department of Corrections described the object as a pen.
“It would be inaccurate to say that it is a pen,” West said, though she declined to say exactly what it was.
Avalos is serving a 10-year sentence after pleading guilty to attacking a teacher with a homemade knife and hitting a security officer at a corrections vocational school in Chehalis in June 2012 for one count each of second-degree assault with a deadly weapon, custodial assault and second-degree malicious mischief, according to Lewis County Superior Court records.
The investigation into the Monday assault continued Tuesday, West said.
“It’s under investigation, so I don’t have any more details to give you at this time,” she said.
According to the Department of Corrections, Avalos stabbed the Clallam Bay corrections officer in the neck and face at about 10:15 a.m. Monday.
The entire 850-inmate facility was placed on lockdown soon afterward.
The officer was taken to OMC in Port Angeles with non-life-threatening injuries and is now recovering at home, West said.
Ron Cameron, chief criminal deputy for the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office, said deputies were at the prison until about 6 p.m. Monday interviewing Avalos and witnesses.
He added that he expects investigative reports to be forwarded to the Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office for a charging decision this week.
“It should be on the prosecutor’s desk fairly soon,” Cameron said.
Cameron referred questions on details of the assault to the Department of Corrections.
According to Chehalis police reports filed in the case, Avalos attacked a teacher during a counseling session June 14, 2012, at Chehalis’ Green Hill School, a medium-/maximum-security fenced facility that provides vocational training for male offenders.
Avalos also hit a Green Hill School security officer multiple times in the head June 19 after the officer came into Avalos’ cell and told him to remove paper covering the window, according to Chehalis police.
Monday’s attack at the Clallam Bay Corrections Center is the first reported since Aug. 15, 2013, when authorities said Daniel Edward Johnson stabbed another inmate with a sharpened toothbrush in an attack believed to have been gang-related.
Johnson is serving a 41-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to the March 3, 2009, murders of his girlfriend and her 1-year-old son.
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Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.
