Lashawn Thompson died in a jail cell in the psychiatric wing of one of the country’s largest lockups based in Atlanta, the Fulton County Jail. (Photos from family attorney Michael Harper)
The sheriff overseeing a jail in Atlanta where a lawyer claims an inmate with schizophrenia died after being “eaten alive by insects and bedbugs” has accepted the resignations of the facility’s executive staff.
Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat said in a news release that he had requested, received, and accepted accepted the resignations of Fulton County Jail’s chief jailer, assistant chief jailer and assistant chief jailer of the criminal investigative division.
“It’s clear to me that it’s time, past time, to clean house,” Labat said in the news release.
He added that the jail’s executive team has more than 65 years of jail administration and law enforcement experience.
“When leveraged at its very best, that experience can be invaluable,” he said. “However, it can also lend itself to complacency, stagnation and settling for the status quo.”
Labat announced the changes after news broke that Lashawn Thompson, 36, died in a cell in the psychiatric wing of the Fulton County Jail, one of the country’s largest lockups. He died on Sept. 13, three months after his arrest on a misdemeanor battery charge, said family lawyer Michael Harper, who shared disturbing photos from the family showing Thompson’s face and body covered with bugs and the grime-filled jail cell.
Investigators from within his agency and the Atlanta Police Department are “doing important work examining the circumstances that led to Mr. LaShawn Thompson’s tragic death, Labat said. “Once those investigations are completed, the full investigative package will be handed over to the Georgia Bureau of Investigations for review.”
“The final investigative report will not ease the family’s grief or bring their loved one back, but it is my hope and expectation that it provides a full, accurate, and transparent account of the facts surrounding Mr. Thompson’s death so that it provides all of the answers they are seeking and deserve,” he added.
Labat also said his office is reviewing its legal options to change medical vendors and is looking to “enter into a new contract with a provider that can effectively, consistently, and compassionately deliver the best standard of care.”
Harper, who said he is considering possible legal action, joined family members at a news conference Thursday to discuss the case and demand action. He said there is no excuse for a mentally ill inmate to be left alone in jail, abandoned to die. He also said that family members are devastated and that they are pushing for a full investigation into the actions of detention officers allegedly involved in Thompson’s death.
“This is inexcusable and deplorable,” Harper said. “The medical staff and the officers saw him deteriorating in the last few weeks before he died. They did nothing to help him. Nothing. They found him dead in his cell, lying there, infested with bedbugs and lice, and that’s what killed him.”
Thompson’s brother, Brad McCrae, said he was heartbroken to hear the news about his brother, who had attended high school in Florida and loved music, dancing and cooking.
“He was a playful person,” McCrae said. “He was a good person. He didn’t deserve this.”
The investigative report into the death provided by Harper said Thompson was found unresponsive in his cell on Sept. 13 at 4:40 a.m. When his body was found, a detention officer refused to administer CPR because, in her words, she “freaked out,” Harper said. An ambulance was called and paramedics tried to resuscitate him, without success.
The report said no obvious signs of trauma existed, and “the decedent’s body was covered in bedbugs.” The cause of his death was deemed undetermined.
A report in November by the Southern Center for Human Rights, which works for justice for those impacted by the criminal legal system in the Deep South, said medical professionals brought in to assess a vermin outbreak in September found that 100% of the people held in a unit that houses people diagnosed with mental illnesses requiring treatment had either lice or scabies, or both.
The report also found that 90% of the people in the unit had not been completing their “activities of daily living,” including showering, dressing, getting out of bed, walking, and using the toilet or receiving essential medications.
The report also found that over 90% of those affected were “significantly malnourished.” The report said they showed clear signs of cachexia, a wasting syndrome leading to muscle and fat loss often seen in people with late-stage cancers.
Terrica Ganzy, the executive director of the Southern Center Human Rights, called it horrifying.
“The jail is a public health nightmare, and instead of exporting the dangerous mismanagement of disease and inhumane treatment of people to the city of Atlanta, Fulton officials should be using every tool available to them to quickly decarcerate,” she said in a statement at the time.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that 64 people held in the Fulton jail died between 2009 and October 2022, the highest for any jail in Georgia at that time.
Fulton County officials said they spent $50,000 to clean and sanitize the jail and are transferring inmates to other facilities to help relieve overcrowding.
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