Four other guards attacked at youth facility in weeks before assault, escape, records show

 

A detention officer at the Lake Granbury Youth Services facility suffered severe injuries Sunday trying to stop three juveniles from escaping.

GRANBURY, Texas — In the weeks before three juvenile inmates escaped a Granbury youth services center, severely injuring a guard as they fled, four other employees filed police reports alleging attacks by juveniles at the center, records obtained by WFAA showed. 

On Sunday, three juveniles assaulted two guards as they escaped from the Lake Granbury Youth Services Center. The Texas Department of Public Safety said they stole multiple vehicles, car and guns, and robbed a gas station before being captured in Lancaster. 

Christy Galindo, a detention services officer at the facility, sustained a fracture to her lower eye, bruises, staples in the back of her head and stitches around her eye as they escaped, she said. 

“I don’t remember everything,” Galindo said. “But I know that I was hit in the head with my radio. I know there were some blows to my head and trauma to my head, and I was completely out of it after that point.”

Records obtained by WFAA show Galindo is not the first employee of the Lake Granbury Youth Services Center to report an attack at the hands of the juveniles inside. The facility director did not respond to a phone call requesting comment. 

Just days before the Dec. 15 escape, a staff member told Granbury police that an inmate “slapped her on the right side of the head with an open hand,” according to a police report. She told police she wanted to press charges, but they decided not to as the alleged perpetrator was already detained on a felony conviction. 

On Nov. 29, two staff members said an inmate attacked them as they tried to secure him. 

“[He] charged at the door to try to attack,” a police report said. 

A staff member told police his leg got close to the inmate’s head and the inmate “bit him on the right leg.” 

The officer taking the police report observed “an open wound” on the staff member’s shin. 

“I advised him to get checked out by a doctor,” the officer wrote. 

Another victim in the same incident said the inmate also bit him on the hand. 

“I observed two cut marks on his finger that was bleeding,” the officer wrote. 

A third victim said the inmate spat in his face during the encounter. All three said they wanted to press charges — and the inmate was charged with three counts of assault on a government contractor, according to the police report.