By C1 Staff
WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — The parents of CO Eric Williams are backing legislation that would provide more protection for corrections officers.
WNEP reports that the Eric Williams Correctional Officer Protection Act would allow officers in medium to high security federal prisons to carry pepper spray.
A pilot program is currently in place and officers participating in it say carrying the pepper spray works.
CO Eric Williams, who worked at the Canaan federal penitentiary and was unarmed when inmate Jess Con-ui charged him and knocked him down a staircase. Con-ui stabbed Williams 129 times and fractured his skull in multiple places.
“Eric was tortued. He died a horrible death and as a mother I would never want to see anybody else go through that,” said Eric’s mother, Jean Williams.
“I can’t bring my son back, that certainly would be the number one thing my wife and I would want to happen, but that’s not going to happen, so the only other thing we can do is step up and say we don’t want our son to have died in vain,” said Don Williams, Eric’s father.
The bill is currently being looked at by the senate judiciary committee.