Prisoner charged
in officers attack
A man held in the Pulaski County jail faces two felony battery charges after police say he fought guards, which led to them using pepper spray against him, according to an arrest report.
Around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, deputies reported finding Willie Williams, 32, of Little Rock standing on his cell bunk with a pair of pants wrapped around his neck.
When guards tried to take the pants from him, he yelled -- using profanity -- that he would rather die by homicide than suicide and began fighting officers, the report states.
Williams jumped off the bunk and kicked a guard, identified as H. Middleton, who had gone in to get the clothing from Williams before Williams grabbed another officer and struggled with him.
Middleton used pepper stray on Williams, spraying a one- or two-second burst into the prisoner's face.
That did not cause Williams to release the other guard, so Middleton struck Williams in the head with his fist clenched around the pepper spray can, Middleton wrote in the report.
Middleton hit Williams on the right side of his body several more times, and when Williams wouldn't let go, Middleton hit him in the side of the head three more times.
Williams was put on the floor and handcuffed before he was inspected by medical personnel and decontaminated from the pepper spray, the report says.
The medical staff determined that Williams did not need further treatment, and he was placed in a holding cell because there was no other standard cell available in the lockup, the report states.
Williams was charged with two counts of second-degree battery of certain victims.
He had been arrested by Little Rock police Monday and charged with two felony counts of terroristic threatening after reportedly telling a woman and a child he would kill them, as well as a felony count of assaulting a law enforcement officer after police said he spit on an arresting officer.