Sex offender charged with attacking law officers arrested in hospital

On Wednesday, Ravnsborg announced a warrant had been issued to arrest the man who was shot and remains in a Sioux Falls hospital.

On Thursday, the wait was over and Rinzy was arrested at the hospital where Rinzy still is being treated.

It seemed time to put on the cuffs, figuratively or physically, according to Minnehaha County State’s Attorney Aaron McGowan.

“We will have a (deputy sheriff) on duty guarding his room 24/7 until he is discharged from the hospital,” McGowan said in a news release on Thursday.

A complaint has been filed in state court charting George Lee Rinzy, Jr., 44, of Sioux Falls, with four counts of aggravated assault using a knife on a law enforcement officer, each a class 2 felony with a maximum penalty, on conviction, of 25 years in prison. According to the four counts, it appears prosecutors are saying two Minnehaha County corrections officers and two county deputies were assaulted by Rinzy.

Rinzy also will be charged with two counts of simple assault on jailers, each a Class 6 felony with a top sentence of two years in prison. Two misdemeanor counts were filed against him, alleging he damaged a jail door and acted violent and threatening, according to Ravnsborg.

Minnehaha County State’s Attorney Aaron McGowan will prosecute Rinzy, Ravnsborg said. Ravnsborg said Rinzy remains in the hospital “and will be formally placed under arrest at a prudent time when his condition has improved.”

According to state prison records, Rinzy is 5 feet, 7 inches, 207 pounds, black and completed a prison sentence in December 2013. It wasn’t clear from the online prison record what crime Rinzy was sentenced for.

Rinzy is a registered sex offender in the state, based on a 1993 conviction in Woodbury, Iowa, — which would be Sioux City — for assault with the intent to commit sexual abuse on a 12-year-old girl, according to state records.

Ravnsborg said Wednesday that his office’s Division of Criminal Investigation will review the deputy’s shooting of Rinzy on Tuesday afternoon.

It’s routine for DCI to do a 30-day review of any case of a law enforcement officer shooting and hitting someone. There have been more than 45 such shootings by law enforcement officers in the past decade or so in the state.

According to Ravnsborg’s news release, the Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call at the jail, which escalated to the male suspect “breaking a window in the door of the jail and then charging law enforcement while armed with a knife.”

A deputy fired a duty weapon at the subject, hitting him. The man is being treated at a Sioux Falls hospital for his injuries.

It happened at about 3:05 p.m., Tuesday, May 21, Ravnsborg said.

The DCI will issue a report within 30 days, he said.

In all known cases in the state over the past decade or more, the AG’s office has found that the law enforcement officer acted appropriately in shooting the person.

The AG office’s DCI conducts such investigations at the request of the local law enforcement agency. The FBI and tribal law enforcement agencies typically do not ask for such investigations by the DCI.