Another person who was incarcerated at Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail has died after being taken to the hospital last week, marking the second death in nearly two weeks out of the facility.
The jail is currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, which is examining the facility’s conditions, mental health services, use of excessive force and protection of those incarcerated from violence.
According to a press release from the Fulton County Sheriff’s Department, 34-year-old Christopher Smith was found unresponsive in his cell Thursday Aug. 10 by a jail detention officer.
Officials transported him to Grady Memorial Hospital, about 4 miles from the jail, but he died at 5:30 a.m. the following day. Smith had been in jail since Oct. 6, 2019. He was arrested on several felony and misdemeanor charges and no bond, the press release states.
The release did not list specifics on the charges against Smith.
His cause of death is not yet known. The Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office will be performing an autopsy to determine how he died.
Forty-year-old Montay Stinson was also found unresponsive in his cell just weeks before on Monday, July 31 around 11:45 p.m. Jail staff began life-saving measures but were unable to revive him. He’d been booked on a 2nd degree burglary charge and $3,000 bond.
It’s believed that now 14 people who were incarcerated at Fulton County Jail have died over the last 10 years. The DOJ investigation stemmed from the September death of 35-year-old Lashawn Thompson, who was allegedly “eaten alive by insects and bed bugs,” his attorneys Michael Harper and Ben Crump said. His family recently settled a lawsuit with the county for $4 million.
The conditions at Fulton County Jail are known among civil rights leaders to be particularly disturbing.
Gerald Griggs, president of the Georgia NAACP, said it’s unknown why so many people who are incarcerated at Fulton County Jail continue to die at the facility, but stated that the…
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