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Inmate attacks Calif. CO with crafted weapon

Officials there say they are treating the incident as an attempted homicide

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A correctional officer walks near a gate, which is one of two entrances into Kern Valley State Prison Tuesday, June 14, 2005, in Delano, Calif.

AP Photo/Ric Francis

By Nate Gartrell
East Bay Times

DELANO, Calif. — A man serving a 30-year prison term for convictions in the Bay Area attacked a prison guard Thursday with a weapon made in prison, officials said.

Charles Faultry, 32, used a crafted weapon to assault a correction officer, striking him the face and continuing to attack him after knocking him down, officials said. Several other prison staff members were injured trying to stop the attack, and four staff members, including the officer, were treated at a local hospital.

The incident happened around 7 a.m. Thursday at Kern Valley State Prison, which houses approximately 3,900 inmates. Officials there say they are treating the incident as an attempted homicide.

Faultry was serving a sentence of 30 years, eight months — split between a 2008 robbery and nonfatal shooting conviction in San Francisco and a 2011 robbery conviction in Contra Costa — and has been transported to an administrative segregation unit while the investigation continues, officials said.

The incident was first of violent incidents between inmates and guards at Kern Valley prison that day, officials said; four hours later, Curley Broussard, 56, struck an officer in the chest and was restrained and pepper-sprayed, officials said. Broussard is serving a life sentence for a 1983 murder conviction.

©2018 the Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.)