Winston-Salem Journal, N.C.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — A Guilford County detention officer was charged with assault after attacking an inmate who had attempted to stab another detention officer.
Charles Leon Parker, 40, resigned after the incident, which happened on June 4, the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office said.
Two detention officers were escorting an inmate, Jose Freddy Flores-Martinez, 23, in the Guilford County Jail. Flores-Martinez is classified as an administratively segregated inmate, which meant two officers had to escort him.
As the officers were escorting him, Flores-Martinez tried to stab one of the officers with a homemade knife.
Parker wasn’t involved in the incident, but the sheriff’s office said he attacked Flores-Martinez in his cell after finding out about the attempted stabbing.
According to an arrest warrant, Parker struck Flores-Martinez “with a closed fist thereby inflecting serious lacerations to the mouth and a cracked front tooth.”
Flores-Martinez was treated by medical staff in the facility.
On June 13, Parker was suspended pending internal and criminal investigations by sheriff’s office Professional Standards Division and Major Crimes Investigative Unit and has since resigned while under investigation.
Parker was charged with misdemeanor assault inflicting serious injury and turned himself in on June 27. He was released on written promise to appear in court.
Flores-Martinez was charged with misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon in the June 4 stabbing attempt. He remains in the Guilford County jail under a $5 million bond stemming from a pending attempted first-degree murder charge dating back to 2020.
The sheriff’s office says the investigation is ongoing and no further details are available at this time.
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