US Department of Justice initiates civil rights probe into jail conditions in Georgia's Fulton County

The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into jail conditions in Georgia's most populous county, with officials citing violence, filthy conditions and excessive force by jail officers.

Investigators will look at living conditions, access to medical and mental health care, use of excessive force by staff and conditions that may give rise to violence between people held in Fulton County's jails, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said during a news conference Thursday. The county's main jail is in Atlanta and has a long history of problems.

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Clarke cited the death in September of Lashawn Thompson in a bedbug-infested cell in the Fulton County Jail's psychiatric wing, noting that an independent autopsy done at his family's request found he died from neglect. Photos released by attorneys for Thompson's family showed his body covered in insects.

The announcement of the investigation comes just two days after a 19-year-old woman died in her cell while in Fulton County custody. Noni Battiste-Kosoko was being held in a part of the Atlanta city jail that is controlled by the Fulton County sheriff's office when she was found unresponsive in her cell Tuesday and was pronounced dead by medical personnel, the sheriff's office said in a news release. She was in her cell alone and had no obvious signs of injury, the release said.

A Justice Department civil rights investigation into Georgia's state prisons that was launched in September 2021 remains ongoing.