New bill sets rules for Illinois DCFS workers to carry pepper spray

Posted on April 5, 2022
The bill arose from the deaths of two DCFS workers: one who was attacked in Carroll County in 2017, and one in Sangamon County this year. (WJBC file photo)

By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – A bill to regulate how DCFS workers may use pepper spray is on its way to the governor, but not before some debate.

Invoking a society-wide bias against Blacks, State Rep. Carol Ammons (D-Urbana) called it a Band-Aid.

“This bill does not solve any problems of the Department of Children and Family Services,” Ammons said, “nor does it offer any real protection for a worker. I used to be a worker. And whether I have Mace or not, this does not offer any true protection for the worker.

“The Department of Children and Family Services needs to be completely reformed, revised, restructured, and re-administered,”

The bill arose from the deaths of two DCFS workers: one who was attacked in Carroll County in 2017, and one in Sangamon County this year.

“Will this end up saving lives? I don’t know,” said the sponsor, State Rep. Tony McCombie (R-Savanna). “But it sure might have helped Pam Knight have three seconds to get away before she was brutally murdered by the hands of a man whose child she was checking on. And it also may have given Deidre Silas a second or three seconds to get away.”

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]

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