- A civil rights attorney is calling for an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department into a county jail in Georgia, where security cameras recorded guards beating detainees.
- The attorney represents Jarrett Hobbs and Zyaire Ratliff, both Black men who were subjected to violent assaults by jailers.
- The Camden County Sheriff’s Office stated that additional deescalation training has been provided to jail employees.
An attorney for two men whose beatings by guards were recorded by security cameras at a county jail in Georgia called Wednesday for the U.S. Justice Department to investigate what he called a systemic pattern of sheriff’s officers abusing detainees.
“They are beating people indiscriminately inside this jail,” civil rights attorney Harry Daniels told reporters at a news conference outside the Camden County Sheriff’s Office, about 95 miles south of Savannah.
Daniels represents Jarrett Hobbs, a 41-year-old Black man booked into the Camden County jail for a traffic violation and drug possession charges on Sept. 3. Security cameras recorded jailers rushing to Hobbs’ cell and repeatedly punching him before hurling him against a wall.
On March 24, video from a camera in the jail’s lunchroom showed 23-year-old Zyaire Ratliff, a Black man detained for violating his probation and failing to appear in court, being shoved to the floor by a deputy who then crouched over him and landed several punches before being pulled off by another guard.
“It’s a place where they make their own rules and whatever they say goes,” said Ratliff, who is also represented by Daniels and appeared with him at the livestreamed news conference. “If you don’t do what they want, this is the type of thing that will happen.”
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Three white deputies accused of punching Hobbs were arrested and fired last fall. On May 18, a grand jury indicted them on misdemeanor charges of battery and felony charges of…
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