A Look Inside Georgia Jail Where Trump Was Booked: 'Nothing Short of a Hulking, Sprawling Nightmare'
As Democrats continue their interference in the 2024 election and ham sandwiches everywhere fear indictments, there’s a side story that needs attention.
Not that it isn’t serious to have farfetched charges against a former president of the United States and many of his associates creating a stain on the stability of the nation and its standing in the world.
But there is a peripheral scene that is concerning, perhaps tragic, and one other thing adding to the growing descent of the U.S. in the direction of the third world.
That scene is contained in Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail, the place where Trump surrendered and posted a $200,000 bond late Thursday.
The Fulton County Jail is a disgrace.
“This place is really nothing short of a hulking, sprawling nightmare,” said CNN correspondent Brian Todd, who examined the jail as the GOP front-runner in the 2024 presidential race made his way there.
Known locally as “Rice Street” because of its address, the jail, when opened in 1989, quickly faced problems, according to Todd.
“Almost immediately after it opened, it was overcrowded, had deplorable conditions and was just a horrible place to be,” he said.
“Just last month, the Justice Department announced an investigation into this place because of ‘allegations of unsafe, unsanitary living conditions, excessive force and violence,'” Todd said.
While the listed jail capacity is 2,688 inmates, in April there were 3,221, he said, noting a jail population at about 120 percent.
Seven inmates died in the jail this year and 15 last year, including a 35-year-old man named Lashawn Thompson who was discovered dead in his cell in September 2021.
“His lawyers and the medical examiner say he died from neglect, malnourishment, other horrible conditions,” Todd said.
“But it was also — he was found with bedbugs and lice just infesting his body,” he continued, noting that Thompson’s lawyers released photos of his cell.
CNN didn’t post the segment on its website, but Mediaite published a clip on Thursday. Others shared the video on social media.
CNN describes the “deplorable” conditions at Fulton County Jail pic.twitter.com/jDnXcTlfuV
— Ethan Harsell (@ethan_harsell) August 24, 2023
Conditions are so bad at the Fulton County Jail that parts of the crumbling structure are being used by inmates as weapons.
“Last year at a public meeting, law enforcement officers wheeled into this public meeting a wheelbarrow full of shanks,” Todd said. “The shanks were taken, they say, by inmates who just basically grabbed crumbling pieces of the walls and fashioned shanks out of them to attack other inmates.”
He showed images and described the horrid conditions in the jail.
“Grime, dirt all over the place, toilets overflowing, air conditioning broken, lice, bedbugs, other insects everywhere … absolutely horrible,” the CNN correspondent said.
Todd said Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat has acknowledged the problems.
However, the sheriff said the county needs $2 billion to build a new jail.
That can be a tough sell, as there are other needs for county dollars, and getting taxpayers to underwrite jail costs can be difficult.
Nevertheless, from a cost-benefit standpoint, revamping the county’s jail facilities might be cheaper than multiple lawsuits.
But that’s not the real issue.
Right or wrong, the U.S. has a high rate of incarcerations. If that’s the route to be followed, there need to be efforts to ensure prisoners — especially county jail inmates, many of whom are considered legally innocent until proven otherwise — have constitutional protections against cruelty.
The Constitution aside, it is the humane thing to do.
Meanwhile, 18 defendants of the Georgia election indictment folly — including Trump — were allowed to bond out of Rice Street.
One was not.
Harrison Floyd, leader of Black Voices for Trump, must stay in jail because he was supposed to have attacked an FBI agent serving him a subpoena, an incident in which Floyd said FBI agents did not properly identify themselves.
Perhaps.
Or is Floyd being held for the crime of Being MAGA While Black?
A two-tiered justice system produces such thoughts.
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