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Former Detainee Sues “Disgusting” Atlanta Jail Where He Was Stabbed 13 Times

Loaded on Sept. 15, 2024 published in Prison Legal News September, 2024, page 21
Filed under: Conditions of Confinement, Failure to Protect (General), Prison Brutality. Location: Georgia.

A lawsuit filed in Georgia’s Fulton County on May 1, 2024, blames poor conditions at the county jail for an assault by fellow detainees on Michael Horton, in which he was stabbed 13 times. As PLN reported, the jail recorded 10 detainee deaths in 2023, which Sheriff Pat Labatt blamed on “dangerous overcrowding” and “crumbling walls” in the lockup; at least one of those deaths was attributed to a bedbug infestation that forced Labatt to transfer some 600 detainees—but not before one of them, detainee LaShawn Thompson, 35, was “eaten alive.” His death cost the county a $4 million settlement in August 2023, the same month that former Pres. Donald J. Trump (R) called the jail “disgusting” during a brief visit to be booked on state charges related to his alleged interference in the 2020 election. [See: PLN, Feb. 2024, p.12.]
Horton was booked into the jail in March 2023 on charges of assault and possession of a weapon by a felon. Before he posted a $5,000 bond and was released two months later, he was the victim of the stabbing attack—one of 922 assaults recorded in the first 10 months of the year, including 337 fights and 293 stabbings, with 1,186 shanks confiscated by guards. Horton’s complaint notes both overcrowding and understaffing at the jail, where broken locks allow detainees to roam freely, crafting homemade weapons from parts of the crumbling building and hiding them in the holes left behind. He accuses Labatt and the County of negligence in failing to protect him from the attack, for which he seeks both compensatory and punitive damages. Horton is represented by Atlanta attorney Tyrone J. Walls. See: Horton v. Fulton Cty., Ga. Super. (Fulton Cty.), Case No. 24-­EV-­003756.  

Additional source: Atlanta Journal-­Constitution

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