Andrew Lansing: Christmas Day Attack, Lawsuit, and Andy’s Law

Andrew Lansing was a 62-year-old Ohio correction officer beaten to death by an inmate on Christmas Day 2024 while working a holiday shift at the Ross Correctional Institution in Chillicothe. His killing led to aggravated murder charges carrying a potential death penalty, a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by his widow against the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, and a pending state bill known as Andy’s Law.

The Christmas Day Attack

On December 25, 2024, Lansing was stationed in a small single-officer guard shack in the Ross Correctional prison yard. Inmate Rashawn Cannon, 27, attacked him inside the structure. Ohio State Highway Patrol records show Lansing suffered a brain bleed and broken teeth. Other incarcerated individuals found him and alerted staff. He died while being transported to a hospital.¹²

Cannon was immediately transferred to the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, and the Ross facility was placed under restricted movement. The Ohio State Highway Patrol led the criminal investigation.¹

Who Andrew Lansing Was

Lansing had worked at Ross Correctional since 1994. Before joining ODRC, he served as an infantryman and sergeant in the U.S. Army, including a deployment to Iraq where he assisted with prison operations. At Ross, he was a long-term squad leader on the agency’s Special Response Team and trained new staff with what colleagues described as a “firm, fair, and consistent” approach.³

ODRC Director Annette Chambers-Smith called Lansing a “loyal, professional” officer who served as a “role model and mentor.” He had been named Ross Correctional’s Officer of the Month for December 2024 and Officer of the Year for January 2025. In May 2025, the agency posthumously awarded him the Ronald C. Marshall Correction Officer of the Year, its highest individual honor, and renamed the institution’s roll call room in his honor.³

Lansing married Chun Wong in October 2002 and is survived by her, a daughter, Kimberly Mae Cooper of Seattle, a son, Edward Taklai Lansing of Chillicothe, and six siblings. He was active in his local church and the Masonic lodge in Waverly, Ohio.⁴

The Inmate and the Criminal Case

Cannon was serving an eight-year sentence at Ross after a September 2023 conviction in Allen County for felonious assault and illegal possession of a firearm. The assault charge stemmed from pistol-whipping a woman. He had been eligible for parole in August 2030.⁵

A Ross County grand jury indicted Cannon in March 2025 on three counts of aggravated murder, each classified as a “special” felony that carries a potential death penalty. He pleaded not guilty. After the indictment he was transferred to the Ohio State Penitentiary and assigned a Level 4 security classification, the highest in the state system. A jury trial is scheduled for September 2026.⁶

The Family’s Wrongful-Death Lawsuit

On December 24, 2025, Chun Wong-Lansing, as executor of her husband’s estate, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction in the Ohio Court of Claims. The case is docketed as No. 2025-01034JD. A separate civil suit was filed directly against Cannon.⁷⁸

The complaint brings claims of employer intentional tort, negligence, wrongful death, promissory estoppel, and breach of contract. It seeks compensatory damages in excess of $25,000 on each of five counts, plus interest and attorney fees.⁹

The central allegation is that ODRC knew Cannon posed a danger to Lansing and failed to act. On April 1, 2024, according to the complaint, Lansing allowed Cannon to make a phone call that had initially been denied. When Cannon became loud and aggressive and Lansing told him to quiet down, Cannon responded with a direct death threat. The lawsuit alleges Cannon’s only discipline was a 30-day restriction on phone privileges.⁶

The suit alleges Cannon had a long record of infractions at Ross, including threatening to beat a cellmate, instigating fights, disobeying direct orders, and possessing illegal narcotics and synthetic cannabinoids. In March 2024, Lansing filed a conduct report against Cannon for possessing K2 and improvised alcohol, but the lawsuit claims the institution’s infractions board never reviewed or acted on it. Cannon’s security classification was never elevated.¹⁰

ODRC has maintained that its policies were followed. An internal audit released in late September 2025 concluded that Lansing’s death was not the result of a policy lapse but of the inmate’s actions. The audit found that all 59 security posts at Ross were filled on Christmas Day, including 51 officers on shift and eight volunteers working holiday overtime. Lansing’s personal alarm device was confirmed to be working, and Cannon had been correctly classified as a security Level 3 inmate. Auditors did note that the guard shack where Lansing was killed was a single-officer post, that staff had requested changes to it, and that the original shack has since been removed and is being replaced with a larger facility.¹¹ An ODRC spokesperson said the agency “does not comment on matters of pending litigation.”¹²

Conditions at Ross Correctional

Lansing’s death drew attention to a facility where violence had been climbing for years. According to reporting by The Marshall Project, Ross led Ohio’s medium-security prisons in 2023 for the number of prisoners who refused to enter their cells out of fear of assault by cellmates. Fighting violations rose from about 700 in 2018 to over 1,000 in 2023. Officer use-of-force incidents climbed from roughly 100 in 2010 to about 400 in 2015 to nearly 740 in 2023. At least six incarcerated men had died at the facility since 2021, including one beaten to death by a cellmate.¹³

Chambers-Smith acknowledged at the time of Lansing’s death that Ross had an 11 percent vacancy rate for correctional staff, compared to an 8 percent statewide average. The OCSEA/AFSCME Local 11 union called the killing “avoidable.” Union president Chris Mabe said staff had been “begging for changes” and cited roughly 40 vacancies at Ross. Mabe sent a formal letter to Governor Mike DeWine demanding that Chambers-Smith and the Ross warden be placed on administrative leave. A spokesperson for the governor declined to comment on the request.¹²¹⁴¹⁵

Lansing’s was the first homicide of an Ohio correctional officer in more than two decades. According to the Officer Down Memorial Page, the most recent prior line-of-duty death at ODRC was Michael Wilson Douds in 2003.¹⁶

Changes Since the Killing

In March 2026, Chambers-Smith resigned as ODRC director and moved to an advisory role in the governor’s office. DeWine said she was “not to blame” for the incident. Ed Banks, the ODRC assistant director, was named interim director.¹⁷

Although the audit concluded that no policies had been violated, ODRC made several operational changes. Ross added eight correction officer positions, two lieutenant roles, and three shift sergeant positions. Officers at Ross and other state prisons are now equipped with Tasers and are receiving expanded defense training. More officers are assigned to the prison’s center court and yard during inmate movement. The guard shack where Lansing was killed has been removed and is being replaced. The department also announced the use of drug-sniffing dogs and AI-powered decoding of inmate letters across facilities.¹¹¹⁸

Andy’s Law

State Representatives Mark Johnson and Phil Plummer introduced House Bill 338, named “Andy’s Law” in Lansing’s memory. The bill passed the Ohio House on November 21, 2025, and was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which held three hearings between March and June 2026. As of June 2026, the full Senate has not voted on the bill, and it has not been sent to the governor.¹⁹²⁰

The bill would expand sentencing to life in prison without parole for inmates who murder an ODRC or Department of Youth Services employee. It creates a mandatory seven-year consecutive sentence for inmates who commit felonious assault against correctional staff and a mandatory three-year sentence for throwing bodily fluids at correctional employees. Level 3 and 4 prisons would be required to deploy drug-sniffing dogs within two years, with K9 units at all lower-level facilities within five years, and those prisons would move to no-contact visitation. The bill allocates $1 million to the Ohio Attorney General’s office for prosecuting cases involving violence against correctional staff. It also requires ODRC to fund healthcare for spouses of correctional staff killed in the line of duty until they remarry, and to hire a consulting firm to improve staff recruitment and retention.¹⁹

1
Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Death of Correction Officer Andrew Lansing
2
StateNews.org. State Says Ohio Prison Wasn’t Short-Staffed Prior to Fatal Assault on Corrections Officer
3
Times Leader. Andrew Lansing Posthumously Awarded Correction Officer of the Year
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OCSEA. Honoring the Life of Correction Officer Andrew Lansing
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The Columbus Dispatch. What We Know About Rashawn Cannon
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Corrections1. Lawsuit: Ohio Correctional Staff Ignored Threats From Inmate Before Officer’s Death
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Signal Ohio. Wong-Lansing v. ODRC Complaint
8
Hometown Stations. Family of Slain Correctional Officer Sues Ohio Prison System
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The Columbus Dispatch. Family of Chillicothe Prison Guard Killed on Christmas in 2024 Sues Ohio
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CW Columbus. Family of Corrections Officer Killed in Christmas Attack Files Lawsuit Against Ohio
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Corrections1. Audit Clears Ohio Prison Policies in Fatal Christmas Day Attack on CO
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WBNS-10TV. Ohio Proposed Bill for Ross Correctional Officer Andrew Lansing
13
The Marshall Project. Tensions High in Ohio Prison After Guard Is Killed in Attack
14
StateNews.org. Ohio Corrections Officer Dies in Christmas Day Inmate Assault
15
Spectrum News 1. Update on Death of Correctional Officer
16
Officer Down Memorial Page. Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction Line of Duty Deaths
17
ABC 6. ODRC Director Annette Chambers-Smith Resigns, Joining Governor DeWine’s Office
18
ABC 6. ODRC Report Reveals No Policy Lapses, Raises Questions
19
Ohio House of Representatives. Ohio House Passes Legislation to Enhance Protection of Correctional Facility Employees
20
Ohio Senate. HB 338 Legislative Status