‘Violent’ teen repeatedly assaulting inmates at El Paso County jail
EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. -- El Paso County Sheriff's Office is charging a former teen fugitive with several felonies after causing trouble and assaulting other inmates within El Paso County jail.
Quinn James Scaggs, 18, is facing charges for two separate altercations in which he hit another inmate. The most recent fight occurred on Tuesday, in which Scaggs punched an inmate in the face multiple times.
The incident left the victim with "several abrasions to his face and mouth and required three stitches to close the wound in his lip." Deputies charged Scaggs with assault in the third degree, according to an arrest affidavit.
A separate altercation took place on Oct. 1, in which Scaggs was able to break his cell's lock and attack Gustavo Antonio Marquez while allegedly calling him a "snitch." The victim's injuries required three surgical grade staples on the back of his head after being hit with a makeshift flail.
After this earlier altercation, deputies charged Scaggs on Jan. 1 with assault in the first degree, aggravated intimidation of a witness, escape and several other felonies.
Marquez, 21, is the key witness for two gang-related homicides dating back to 2017. Authorities say his confession allowed law enforcement to arrest several other suspects involved in the execution-style shootings of teenagers Derek Greer and Natalie Partida.
As part of Marquez's guilty plea deal, he agreed to testify against nine other suspects involved in the murder of the two Coronado High School students.
After the assault on Marquez, investigators say Scaggs told them "he's a snitch and I got to smash him out."
Scaggs has previously been described as a "violent offender" after escaping a youth detention center and going on an armed robbery spree in August 2019, officers say.
Sergeant Deborah Mynatt, a spokesperson for EPCSO, says these type of violent jail altercations are rare and treated very seriously.
"It is alarming," she said. "So whenever we hear of things like that, or if there is an identifier that tells us these two are probably going to get into a physical altercation of some sort, that's number one to us. And we're going to immediately separate the parties."
Mynatt says some of the locks in El Paso County jail date back to the early 1990s and can be picked by certain "talented" inmates. But without additional funding, the broken jail locks can only be repaired instead of permanently upgraded.
"So when that does occur we try to fix those immediately," said Mynatt, adding that no inmate is housed in cells with locks known to be broken.
While EPCSO is gradually replacing its jail's older locks, Mynatt says funding is an issue given that an entire replacement would cost more than a million dollars.
