A former civilian employee at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station was charged this week with hitting a fellow worker with a wrench, knocking the man unconscious and breaking his jaw and skull in multiple places, according to court documents.
The November 2013 attack was unprovoked, according to a special agent with Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
It occurred after the attacker stopped taking anti-psychotic medication, investigators said.
Prosecutors charged Ernesto Galvez, 59, of Oak Harbor, in Island County Superior Court March 9 with first-degree assault.
Galvez is accused of attacking his co-worker at the Fleet Readiness Center Northwest on November 2013. The men were contract employees for Mission First Support Services.
Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Eric Ohme said a number of factors delayed the filing of charges. He said the NCIS agent had to do a lot of follow-up work on the case, including the issuance of search warrants of medical records for both the victim and Galvez.
Also, Galvez’s attorney requested that charges be delayed, he said. The attorney could not be reached for comment.
Galvez picked up a two-foot-long torque wrench and struck a man who was working on an aircraft engine; when the man fell unconscious to the floor, Galvez struck him again in the face “with a two-handed downward swing,” according to an NCIS report.
Co-workers intervened and confronted Galvez, who tossed the wrench at a witness and attempted to flee on foot, the report said.
Navy security detained Galvez in a nearby hallway.
Investigators initially reported that the victim’s injuries were possibly fatal. He was transported to Whidbey General Hospital and later airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for treatment.
He suffered “a subdural hematoma, multiple skull and orbital fractures, a fractured jaw and damage to the bone structures in his ear,” the NCIS report states.
After he was taken into custody, Galvez was escorted to a security building. In a bathroom, he stabbed himself in the neck, abdomen and chest — puncturing his lungs — with “large safety pins,” the report states. Security officers restrained Galvez, who was taken to Whidbey General Hospital for treatment.
Witnesses who saw Galvez allegedly hit his co-worker with a wrench said the two men were not fighting; co-workers had no knowledge of any conflict between them.
The victim also said he had no idea why he was attacked.
Galvez’s wife told an investigator that her husband was insulted by a joke the victim made approximately three years prior, but no conflicts since then.
Galvez became increasingly delusional and paranoid and had stopped taking his anti-psychotic medication without consulting his doctors, the report states.
Galvez was hospitalized after the attack. He was diagnosed with chronic paranoid schizophrenia, acute psychotic episode and assaultive behavior, the report indicates.
