On Wednesday, a Tyler County jury found 23-year-old, Jamie Guerrero guilty of “aggravated assault on a public servant;” sentencing him to 35 years in prison with a mandatory 17 year confinement without parole. Guerrero was facing a life sentence in connection to an incident last January that involved him threatening a police officer with a knife and resisting arrest.
Police arrived at Guerrero’s residence upon receiving a complaint from the suspect’s mother. Officers discovered Guerrero in the back yard “sniffing spray paint, talking incoherently, and making loud noises while breathing from a plastic bag containing a rag coated in spray paint.” When Guerrero saw the approaching officers, he fled the scene and “ran through a heavily wooded area toward a creek;” before falling along an embankment- clearly high from ‘huffing.’One officer noticed the suspect was holding a knife and asked him to drop it immediately. Guerrero refused and instead verbally threatened the officer, asserting that he would use the weapon and “scar [the officer] for life.” After several failed attempts to restrain the suspect, officers used a Taser stun gun to subdue him- and were able to take Guerrero into custody.
In court, Guerrero pled not guilty to assaulting a police officer even though audio tapes of the altercation revealed otherwise. It took the jury only45 minutes to deliberate and deliver a ‘guilty’ verdict earlier this week.
It is safe to say that Guerrero’s altered state of mind, was clearly a result of ‘huffing’ spray paint, and contributed greatly to his erratic behavior and violent reactions displayed toward police last January. It is not yet known if the suspect will be required to undergo a drug rehabilitation program while in jail.
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