By Lindsay Whitehurst
An Iron County jail inmate tried to make an escape with a fake bomb Monday but was stopped by a corrections deputy who refused to let him leave.
The 28-year-old man fashioned a convincing-looking "bomb" out of a toilet paper roll and paper pill cups colored with permanent marker and headphone wires, said Iron County Sheriff Mark Gower. He used a red cap from a spray can to imitate a trigger.
Using the fake bomb, he tried to force a corrections deputy to let him out of a secure common room door at about 5 p.m. She fought back, refusing to let him leave as he threatened to detonate the bomb.
"She said, 'Then I guess we're both going to die,'" Gower said. With the help of other deputies, she forced him back into the common room and into the booking area, which is isolated from other parts of the jail. The deputies used two rounds from a bean-bag gun to subdue him and put him back in his cell. A bomb squad was called out and used a water cannon on the device.
The man was in jail on a felony warrant from another state; he had been there about a month. He will now face new charges, including aggravated assault against a deputy, making terroristic threats and attempt to escape, Gower said.
No one has escaped from the jail in more than 20 years, he said, though sometimes inmates try by feigning illness.
"This is the first time I've had someone trying to use a bomb to threaten someone to escape," Gower said. "He'll be in Utah for a while."