An eastern North Carolina lawmaker took to the U.S. Senate floor this National Peace Officers Memorial Week to honor the state’s fallen officers, including one from eastern North Carolina.
Senator Thom Tillis said a Pamlico County Sheriff’s Sergeant suffered a fatal heart attack after he was punched by an inmate at the county detention center in Bayboro.
“Last December, we lost such at Russell Jones of Pamlico County Sheriff's Office,” he said, “He was attempting to halt an altercation at the Pamlico County Detention Center and during the encounter with an inmate, Sergeant Jones was punched in the face, leading him to collapse minutes later and die.”
Related: Four law enforcement officers shot and killed in Charlotte
A bill Tillis reintroduced earlier this month, the Protect and Serve Act, is bipartisan legislation that would make knowingly causing or trying to injure to a law enforcement officer a federal crime.
"Most people would be surprised to learn that intentionally harming or attempting to harm a law enforcement officer in this country is not a federal crime,” he said
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Tillis initially proposed the bill in January, after the death of Greensboro Police Sergeant Philip Dale Nix; he reintroduced the bill days after four law enforcement officers were killed in Charlotte while trying to arrest a known fugitive.
