MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — A prisoner serving a life sentence for attempted murder is now facing another attempted murder charge after officials said he repeatedly stabbed an officer at the Dade Correctional Institution.
According to an arrest report, the attack happened just after 12:30 a.m. Monday in the G-Dormitory of the prison, located at 19000 SW 377th St., south of Florida City.
In the report, a Florida Department of Corrections investigator stated that the officer noticed Jarvis Fortson, 44, out of his cell and went to put him back inside.
Authorities said Fortson, imprisoned in the state system since 2001 after convictions in Gadsden County, “became verbally hostile” and eventually “rapidly exited the cell,” attacking the officer with a homemade “shank” and stabbing him “multiple times along the side of the left side (of the) torso.”
The officer managed to grab Fortson’s hand to stop the attack before backup arrived. Prison medical staff tended to the officer before he was airlifted to Jackson South Medical Center to be treated as a trauma patient.
In the hospital, the officer recalled that Fortson told him he “was going to regret it if (he) closed and secured (his) cell door.”
According to the report, Fortson told investigators “that he heard a voice that said ‘kill him’ as he spoke with” the officer and claimed he “blanked out” before the stabbing.
As of Tuesday morning, Fortson was being held in Miami-Dade County’s Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center as he faces new charges of attempted murder, resisting with violence and weapons possession.
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