ACI guards hurt in fight with officer's alleged killer

One correctional officer suffers several injuries when a team enters the cell of Esteban Carpio because he was "acting up."

01:54 PM EDT on Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Journal and projo.com staff

CRANSTON -- A handcuffed Esteban Carpio, who is accused of killing a Providence police detective, assaulted three correctional officers in his cell last night, leaving one with a fractured jaw and broken eye socket, a Department of Corrections spokeswoman said.

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View a noontime video report on the Carpio incident

The officer was admitted to Rhode Island Hospital but has since been released, spokeswoman Joy Fox said. Last night she said that it appeared he had also damaged a vertebra in his neck area. But she backed away from that today, saying it was more like a whiplash injury.

The other two officers were not seriously injured and were treated at a Warwick walk-in clinic, Fox said last night. One suffered a hyperextended thumb and Carpio spat at the other, she said.

Carpio will face additional charges for last night's incident, but Fox said she could not specify their nature. The state police, who are investigating, announced this morning that they will hold a press conference this afternoon about the incident.

Fox said it began at around 6:45 p.m. yesterday when officers observed Carpio "acting up" in his cell at the Adult Correctional Institutions.

She said a team of four officers and a lieutenant "went in to stop him from acting up, and he became combative with them."

Today, Fox explained that Carpio was observed disrupting his bed.

Before officers went in to stop him from doing so, they had Carpio put his hands through a slot in his locked door and handcuffed him.

They went into the cell, armed with plastic shields and pepper spray. They do not carry guns.

Fox said Carpio, still in handcuffs, immediately "became combative." The officers responded by using the pepper spray to subdue him, she said.

Carpio himself was not seriously injured. "One of the cuts on his head from last week reopened slightly," Fox said. "Nothing major. Our medical staff here took care of it."

Carpio remains at the ACI but has been moved to a cell in the medical ward, Fox said today, where he is under constant supervision and monitored by video.

Before the incident, Carpio was in a cell by himself in the Intake Center at the state prison, and correctional officers were checking on him every 15 minutes, Fox said.

Carpio, 26, of Providence, is charged with murder in the April 17 death of Providence Detective Sgt. James L. Allen. The police say Allen was questioning Carpio about the stabbing of an elderly woman on the afternoon of April 16 when Carpio wrestled Allen's gun away from him and used it to shoot Allen twice.

They say Carpio jumped out a third-floor window at Providence Public Safety Complex and fled. He was later arrested on Washington Street, less than a mile away.

When Carpio appeared in District Court the next day, his appearance -- eyes swollen nearly shut, oozing cuts on his face, a blood-spattered mask covering the lower half of his face -- drew gasps and an emotional outburst from his mother, Yvonne Carpio. "Stevie, tell them police brutality!" she shouted before she was removed from the courtroom.

The police say Carpio fought violently during his arrest. The FBI is leading an investigation into whether law-enforcement officers used excessive force during Carpio's capture.

Carpio's girlfriend, Samein Phin, told reporters he suffered from mental problems in the days and weeks before the stabbing. Phin said Carpio had been hearing voices, seeing things and muttering to himself. She said she called a Providence mental health agency that morning and was told to bring Carpio in two days later.

-- With reports from Journal staff writer Elizabeth Gudrais, Amanda Milkovits and Michael Corkery and projo.com staff