Social worker hurt in attack

Security a concern at Wake building

RALEIGH -- A man was jailed on an assault charge Tuesday after being accused of punching and kicking a social worker at a Wake County Human Services building.

Jerrica Newtcha Culbreth was named as the suspect in the morning assault on the fourth floor of the county building on Swinburne Street, where the offices for child custody and foster care are located, according to court records and Wil Glenn, a county spokesman.

Security had been a previous concern at the building, Glenn said, declining to elaborate on the specific complaints or how the county had addressed the issue. Glenn said officials would review security measures at the building, which is behind WakeMed-Raleigh Campus, off New Bern Avenue.

Police think that at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Culbreth, 28, walked into the Human Services building, which houses a number of county offices and has no visible security checkpoint other than a sign taped to a front desk with security guards behind it asking visitors to sign in.

Culbreth then went to the fourth floor and encountered Eleanor Susan Lee, a social worker. Lee was punched repeatedly in the face and body, as well as kicked, according to arrest warrants and Jim Sughrue, a spokesman for the Raleigh Police Department. Other employees intervened and held Culbreth at bay until police arrived, Sughrue said.

Lee was taken across town to Rex Healthcare and treated. The extent of her injuries was not known, but she remained at the hospital early Tuesday evening.

Culbreth was in the Wake County jail, charged with assault inflicting serious bodily injury and held under a $25,000 cash bail. He has previous convictions of selling cocaine, making threatening phone calls and assaulting females, according to court records.

(Staff writer Thomasi McDonald and news researcher Lamara Williams contributed to this report.)