Deaths at Scandal-Plagued Atlanta-Area Jail Doubled in 2024

Twice the number of detainees at Georgia’s notorious Clayton County Jail died in 2024 compared to the previous year.

The deaths of eight people detained at the Atlanta-area jail raise new questions about the scandal-plagued facility. Last year, when four detainees died, Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff called for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate the Clayton County Jail and cited The Appeal’s reporting. But the agency never announced any inquiry.

In 2022, former Sheriff Victor Hill was convicted of violating the civil rights of several pre-trial detainees, including a child, when he ordered his staff to strap them in restraint chairs for hours. Later that year, Levon Allen, Hill’s godson, became interim sheriff. In 2023, Allen was elected sheriff in a special election; the two sheriffs have since had a public falling out, with Hill blasting his former ally over his spending. 

A Fox 5 Atlanta investigation revealed that Allen spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to promote himself during the 2023 sheriff’s election. He also spent $3 million on electric vehicles for staff to drive to work.

In an interview with The Appeal, Allen said he instituted several changes at the jail since taking office, including hiring a new healthcare provider. In October, FirstClass Healthcare replaced CorrectHealth, a for-profit medical provider accused of ignoring the needs of dying patients. The new nine-month contract with FirstClass Healthcare is worth almost $15 million. If the number of detainees exceeds 1,800, the county will pay more. 

Allen said he strives to have every staff member treat detainees as they would their own loved ones—to provide “Disney World and Chick-fil-A customer service, and I don’t play about it.” 

The deaths occurred during a fraught year for Georgia’s jails and prisons overall. In October, the DOJ said that conditions inside the state’s prison system had become so deplorable that they violated the U.S. Constitution. The next month, the federal agency castigated Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail for being in similarly horrendous shape. The latter investigation came after The Appeal and other news outlets spent years reporting on scandals and mistreatment inside the facility.

As for Clayton County, Allen said in a phone interview he was unsure why more deaths occurred this year. 

“Some of them were medical issues,” Allen said. “Some of them were just tempers and moments of anger, ultimately changing people’s lives forever.”

Two homicides occurred inside the jail this year. In one instance, Nicholas Hill, a 21-year-old detainee, allegedly killed 29-year-old Hakim Shahid, who was attacking another detainee. Allen said Hill was “trying to save the other guy.”

“Had he been out on the street and he was just passing by, and he had a pocket knife, and he wanted to save somebody—cool, probably no problem,” Allen said. “But because he had contraband inside of a jail or had something like that, he’s going to be charged himself.”

Prosecutors have charged Hill with felony murder, aggravated assault, and possession of prohibited items.

In the other case, officials attributed the violence, in part, to overcrowding. Three people—the victim, the alleged perpetrator, and a third man—had been assigned to a two-person cell.

“When one inmate uses the toilet and the other inmate’s head is down by the toilet, you will have fights, and when you are in a room where everything in the room is steel, metal, or concrete, it becomes a deadly cage match,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement at the time of the detainee’s death in January.

Nearly a year later, the sheriff says the jail remains overcrowded. Allen said the issue impacts about 500 people. Some sleep on the floor. Others are crammed into two-person cells holding three people.

Despite the overpopulation, local law enforcement officers continue to arrest people for low-level offenses. According to the online jail roster, at least 15 people were booked into the jail on December 2 for traffic or other minor violations. 

Allen said he encouraged local police chiefs to write tickets when possible and used his authority to release “well over 1,000” people held on low-level charges. 

“If y’all want to waste the time and paperwork, go ahead,” he said, referring to officers who arrest people for driving with a suspended license. “But I mean, ultimately, we just do not have the space.”

The sheriff said his office did not keep a list of these releases.

Several recent deaths appear to involve people who may have received inadequate medical care from CorrectHealth. Last year, Alan Willison died from testicular cancer after begging for help for almost two months. Despite his desperate pleas and worsening condition, the medical staff never sent him to a hospital, according to a lawsuit Willison’s mother filed in October. The county medical examiner’s office concluded that medical neglect contributed to his death. 

“NEED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL,” Willison wrote in one of his many messages requesting medical attention. “I HAVE MAJOR PAIN AND SOMETHING WRONG WITH PRIVATE PARTS.” 

When Willison finally saw a urologist in January, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. The suit says that the doctor told both law enforcement and medical staff that Willison needed emergency surgery to remove his left testicle, but “no medical providers, directors or personnel from CCJ [the Clayton County Jail] ever returned the urologist’s call or picked up calls to schedule the surgery.” 

Willison died on January 26, 2023. 

Allen appeared unfamiliar with this account. 

“The briefing to me was that, ‘Hey, he came in, he was at the final stages of the cancer, and ultimately, the decision had been made that he was going to pass,’” he told The Appeal. “Now, if that’s true or not, I don’t know.”

CorrectHealth said in a court filing that it had insufficient “information to either admit or deny” many of the lawsuit’s allegations.

Several other detainees also died after repeatedly asking for help. Earlier this year, DeWayne Driscoll was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead after another detainee found him unresponsive and called for help.

Two days before his death, he told the jail’s medical staff that he was having trouble breathing and had issues with back pain and hypertension. He was released back to the general population after a brief stay in the infirmary. 

Perez Denis Martinez was one of the last Clayton County detainees to die under CorrectHealth’s watch. Weeks before his death, the 23-year-old wrote to jail staff on July 30, “I need vitamins I feel really weak and feel like passing out every now and then.” [sic] The next day, he received a reply saying the jail would give him medication the following day.

He then sent another message on August 3.

“I feel weak no appetite & have not eaten in days,” he wrote. “Starting to have suicidal thoughts & hear voices.” Four days later, an employee replied that she had spoken to an officer and was told she could see him shortly. 

Jail records show that Martinez lost consciousness multiple times in the days before his death. On August 13, medical staff examined Martinez after he’d passed out and hit his head. Employees cleared him to return to his housing unit. That same day, officers reported that Martinez was refusing to eat. Staff then gave him a psychological assessment. 

On August 15, Martinez’s cellmates told an officer that he had been vomiting for the past two days, according to an incident report. The officer began to walk Martinez toward medical staff when he fell backward and hit his head. Martinez was admitted to the jail infirmary. 

According to sheriff’s office records, an officer told Martinez the next day he was being sent back to the general population. Moments later, the officer heard Martinez’s cellmates yelling that he had fallen. When the officer returned to the room, Martinez was sitting and rubbing his head. The officer said Martinez would see medical staff before his discharge.

According to the officer’s report, Martinez then took a few steps and “fell straight back to the floor.” He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The cause of death listed on the medical examiner’s report is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a type of heart condition.

“I didn’t follow up with that autopsy to find out what happened or what was the cause of death from there,” Allen said. “But ultimately, he was in our medical care, and he fell down.”

Almost two weeks after Martinez’s death, another man named Dwanney Hall died days after leaving the Clayton County Jail. Hall was arrested on August 20 and released seven days later. According to a medical examiner’s report, he told his wife that an officer at the jail had clubbed him in the stomach for using a cell phone.

The report says that within 24 hours of Hall’s release from jail, he was admitted to the hospital for severe abdominal pains. Doctors diagnosed him with a perforated bowel. He died shortly after arriving.