Colorado man injures jail staff member and several guards in Larimer County Jail
A man initially arrested and charged with DUI, attempted escape, possession of an illegal weapon, possession of drug paraphernalia and resisting arrest is now also accused of assaulting a jail staffer and three guards. Those three guards were hospitalized -- one with serious injuries.
Carmen Scott Musso, 44, was arrested Thursday morning by Fort Collins police on those initial charges. The DUI -- of which he has at least three similar priors -- and attempted escape charges are both felonies and police say he was combative, so he was booked into an individual holding cell, the Larimer County Sheriff's Office said in a statement on Friday.
Later in the day, as deputies and medical staff were checking on Musso, he allegedly assaulted a jail staff member. As a result, his bond went from $10,000 to $60,000, court records show.
Friday morning, Larimer deputies said Musso appeared to have calmed down and when they tried to remove him from the individual holding cell, they say he attacked them, causing "significant" injury to at least one of them. When two more deputies came to help, he attacked them too and tried to get one of their tasers, the sheriff's office said. He was eventually restrained.
Three of those deputies were taken to the hospital. One had serious injuries and two others had minor injuries, the sheriff's office said.
As a result of that second alleged attack, he now faces the additional charges of second-degree assault on a peace officer causing serious bodily injury, two more charges of second-degree assault on a peace officer and an attempt to disarm a peace officer; all felonies.
A bond hearing has not yet been set for the additional charges and Musso has not yet hired or been assigned an attorney.
"We expect our staff to treat everyone in our jail with dignity and respect, and that's exactly how our deputies approached this individual. It's the right thing to do, and it makes our facility safer. It absolutely sickens me to see this unprovoked and calculated violence against our deputies," Larimer County Sheriff John Feyen said in a statement Friday. "I often hear people say, 'you signed up for this.' While law enforcement does come with inherent risks, nobody deserves to be attacked. We cannot excuse or accept this kind of violence against our public servants."
Musso has 44 cases going back to 1995 -- mostly criminal cases such as a 2006 assault conviction, a 2019 conviction for escape, a 2022 conviction for possession of an illegal weapon and a separate 2022 conviction for assault causing injury, among others -- all in Larimer County.
