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Man accused of biting cellmate’s finger off in Clark County jail

Two inmates in a Clark County Detention Center holding cell — both apparently upset that they were locked up — got into a fight. During the scuffle, Jacob David Long felt his cellmate’s finger inside his mouth.

Then he bit down, according to his arrest report.

“It appeared as though his finger had been severed completely below the fingernail and above the first knuckle,” the report states.

The inmates crossed paths on Nov. 24, when both were placed in holding cell No. 2 on the first floor of the downtown Las Vegas jail.

Jail and court records show that Long, a 31-year-old suspect in a North Las Vegas robbery and burglary case, had been transferred that day from the Las Vegas Detention Center to the county jail.

By 5:50 p.m., the two had begun arguing inside the cell, and “Long swings his elbow” at the other inmate, hitting him in the head and knocking him down to the ground, according to the report.

The two scuffled until, suddenly, the report states, a large pool of blood appeared. Corrections officers entered the cell several minutes after the fight began, the report said.

By the time a Metropolitan Police Department detective arrived at the county jail, the injured inmate had already been taken to University Medical Center, the portion of his missing finger located and wrapped up.

Asked later if he had bitten the inmate’s finger off, according to the report, Long told the detective, “Yes, that’s a possibility.”

“Long said he didn’t know if he bit the finger off but he knew there was a large amount of blood,” the report states.

It wasn’t clear if doctors were able to reattach the finger, but in the report the detective described the injury as “serious permanent disfigurement or protracted loss or impairment to the function of the finger.”

Long faces a felony count of battery resulting in substantial bodily harm in connection with the fight. His preliminary hearing in the battery case is set for Wednesday morning in Las Vegas Justice Court, records show.

Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.

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