CLALLAM BAY — An inmate serving a life sentence at Clallam Bay Corrections Center is in maximum security today after a row in which he allegedly punched a correctional officer in the nose and injured two others.
Department of Corrections spokesman Chad Lewis said Sunday that Steven Michael Eggers, 35 — who is serving a life sentence for beating and drowning a Snohomish County man in 1995 — refused to re-enter his cell after dinner Saturday at 6:42 p.m., causing a correctional officer on the close-custody unit floor to summon a response team.
Punched, cuts, bruises
It was during the resulting struggle that Eggers allegedly punched one of the guards. Two others were cut and bruised as they secured the unit, Lewis said.
None of the officers was seriously injured, and all were treated by the prison’s medical staff, he said.
After Eggers was subdued, he was taken to the prison’s maximum-security unit and locked up, Lewis said.
The Clallam County Sheriff’s Office was summoned and is conducting a criminal investigation into whether charges of custodial assault against Eggers will be filed, Lewis said.
Eggers’ unit was placed on lockdown after the incident by prison Superintendent Ron Fraker.
Last week, Clallam Bay Corrections Center came off a prison-wide lockdown put in place June 29 when the staff stopped an escape attempt by two other inmates.
One of those inmates was shot dead by a correctional officer as the prisoner attempted to burst through a prison fence with a hijacked forklift while the other held a guard hostage with a pair of scissors from the prison industries area.
Maximum security
Eggers will remain in a maximum-security unit while prison investigators interview staff members and offenders.
Before Saturday’s incident, Eggers had been in the close-custody unit, which is the second-highest security level at Clallam Bay.
Eggers is serving a life sentence on a 1996 first-degree aggravated murder conviction in Snohomish County.
As a teenager, he and another teen plotted to lure a 27-year-old Everett man — who had agreed to purchase beer for them — to an apartment, where they severely beat him in order to steal his car.
The two then drove the injured man, who was bound and gagged, several miles up the Skykomish River and threw him into the waters, in which the man drowned.
Clallam Bay Corrections Center, which opened 26 years ago, houses about 850 offenders in medium-, close- and maximum-security units.