By Marlee Ginter
WoodTV
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — An internal investigation revealed that locked doors, isolated pods and a state-of-the-art computer system didn’t stop a Kent County jail inmate from choking a former corrections officer nearly to death.
Willie Lee Wilson Williams beat and choked Jaclynn Rodriguez until she lost consciousness when he tried to escape the jail in Grand Rapids in September 2012. Other inmates broke out of their cells to stop Williams, likely saving Rodriguez’s life.
“I was pretty sure he was going to kill me. ...I was terrified,” Rodriguez testified in July. “I thought I was going to die. I couldn’t breathe.”
One inmate called it a “nightmarish” strangulation, and it left Rodriguez with bruising all over her body, a swollen neck and even a swollen tongue.
Full story: Jail safety concerns after guard choked