Salem man arrested for drugs, more

By: 
Staff Writer Kate Wehlann

Juan Carbajal, 35, Salem, was arrested on multiple charges within a week. On Monday, Aug. 27, he was arrested on several warrants for failure to appear on drug charges, being an habitual offender, and more drug charges, dating back to May and August. He was released on Tuesday, Aug. 28.

On Saturday, Sept. 1, he was arrested for resisting law enforcement after threatening to beat officers when they came to arrest his girlfriend, Ruby Parker, 28, Salem, on warrants for failure to appear.

Just before 6:45 p.m. on Sept. 1, dispatchers received a call of a man with facial tattoos dragging a woman by her hair across the yard on East State Road 160 in Salem. A responding officer recognized Carbajal sitting on the front porch when he arrived at the home. Another located the woman, but there was no sign of physical abuse. Both seemed to be impaired.

The woman identified herself as Adrianna Luna, but Deputy Tory Hildreth wasn’t able to find any official information on her. Carbajal’s daughter told the officer her real first name was Ruby. Deputy Brad Naugle and Carbajal’s daughter went inside and found the woman passed out on the bed. The teen girl handed Naugle an Indiana ID card for Ruby Parker, whose picture matched the woman on the bed. Naugle found Parker had active warrants out of both Washington and Harrison counties. Naugle woke Parker and informed her she had warrants for her arrest and placed her in handcuffs.

When they were taking Parker out, Carbajal was still sitting in the chair on the porch and he said, “I cannot let you take my girlfriend to jail.” Naugle explained they had to take her into custody, but Carbajal stood and took a fighting stance with both fists clenched and again said he couldn’t let the officers take his girlfriend to jail. Naugle asked him to sit back down and again explained why. Carbajal sat back down, but “again made a statement ‘I cannot let you take my girlfriend to jail I’m going to have to beat your …’”

As the officers led Parker away, Naugle said he saw Carbajal clench his fists and start to get back up out of the chair. He then took control of Carbajal and placed his left hand behind his back and Hildreth took hold of his right. Naugle said Carbajal tried to pull away, but was arrested for interfering with law enforcement, which falls under the resisting arrest statute.

Hildreth took Parker and Carbajal to the Washington County Jail and Naugle stayed to make contact with Carbajal’s mother, who also lives at the home, to take care of a 9-year-old boy who was also at the home. Naugle waited at the home until she returned and left the juveniles in her care.

At around 10:20 that night, jail staff radioed for assistance with an unruly inmate from the Salem City Police. Corrections Officer Dylan Moore said Carbajal had threatened to hang himself and flood his cell. As Moore was in the process of placing Carbajal in a restraint device, Carbajal began spitting at him.

Carbajal was in a padded cell and when Moore asked if Carbajal was OK, Carbajal became violent and started yelling, saying he didn’t do anything and didn’t understand why he was there and that he would hang himself and flood his cell. When Moore turned to inform another corrections officer of what Carbajal had said, he saw that officer running toward him and drawing his tazer. That officer ordered Carbajal to turn and face the wall, but Carbajal refused, picking up his mat and placing it over his body to protect himself from potential tazer prods and then his blanket and tried to wrap it around his knuckles. Moore said Carbajal kept telling them to open the door and acting like he was going to ram it open. He continued to disregard commands and told the officers “he would take down every guard that entered his cell and began telling us where we were going to be laying at when he was done.”

The corrections officers radioed for assistance and the officers were eventually able to restrain him. That’s when Carbajal began spitting and the spit struck Moore in the forehead.

Just after 1 a.m. on Sept. 2, Carbajal was released from the restraint device without any further incident, but was placed in a suicide smock after his previous comments and placed on suicide watch until he was cleared by the facility’s medical staff.

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