Ex-prison guard, shot six times, hails FCC push to allow cellphone jamming behind bars

The FCC is slated to vote Tuesday on whether to consider a proposal to lift the restriction on cell jamming technology inside state prisons.

Robert Johnson was a corrections officer whose job it was to prevent inmates from smuggling cellphones, drugs and other contraband into one of South Carolina’s most violent prisons.

But then came the morning of March 5, 2010.

Johnson was inside his home, preparing to head into work at the Lee Correctional Institution, when a hitman kicked in his front door and shot him six times in the chest and stomach.

Miraculously, Johnson survived. He hoped to return to work after multiple surgeries, but it eventually became clear to him that the damage to his body was too extensive.

“My heart was messed up — my liver, my lungs, diaphragm, right leg, left leg,” recalled Johnson, now 72. “I had everything wrong, from the nerve damage and trauma of those bullets.”