Latreece Williams hasn’t had a good night’s sleep at her home in Perkerson Park in over a month.
Not since her son Dewayne Lamar High Jr., who was diagnosed with epilepsy and bipolar schizoaffective disorder in 2011, has been locked up in Fulton County Jail.
“I call watch command every day to ask for a wellness check, and they keep telling me he’s fine, but I know he’s not,” Williams told Capital B Atlanta.
According to Williams, High, 31, has been having daily seizures as a result of not having his proper medications, and she is terrified he will die in jail.
“A guard called me [a couple of weeks ago] because my son asked him to call and tell me that he wasn’t getting his medication,” she said.
This is hardly the first time the relative of an incarcerated person with mental illness has made allegations of mistreatment against the Fulton County jail. Last November, the U.S. Department of Justice released a scathing 97-page report cataloging the numerous constitutional and human rights violations they found during a yearlong investigation.
Read More: ‘This Is Not Normal’: Protesters Decry ‘Atrocious Conditions’ at Fulton County Jail
The DOJ team concluded that “constitutionally inadequate medical care” has led to serious injury or death for incarcerated people and highlights “poor medication administration practices” as one of the most egregious problems with the jail’s medical care.
Officials calculated that of the 32 of people who died in custody since January 2021, 75% had a history of mental illness. The investigation was triggered by the gruesome death in custody of Lashawn Thompson in September 2022.
Thompson, 35, was arrested on a misdemeanor assault charge and held in the jail’s psychiatric unit from June until his death three months later.
Thompson’s autopsy, performed by Dr. Roger A. Mitchell Jr., chair of the pathology department at Howard University College of Medicine, found the cause of death to be “complications due to severe neglect,” with untreated decompensated schizophrenia as a contributing cause. He also found that Thompson was suffering from dehydration, malnutrition, and severe body insect infestation at the time of his death. As a result of the neglect, Thompson suffered cardiac arrhythmia that caused his death.
“Had Mr. Thompson received adequate care during his incarceration at the Fulton County Jail than [sic] he would not have died at the time that he did,” Mitchell wrote.
In January, a few weeks after the report was published, the county and the sheriff’s office entered into an agreement called a consent decree with the federal government to address the dire situation.
Read More: Two Deaths at Fulton Jail Raise More Questions about Safety and Oversight
But Williams believes changes aren’t happening quickly enough for people currently being held at the jail. She said her son didn’t receive his prescribed medications for the first few weeks of his incarceration until she made a formal complaint at the courthouse. Now she believes he is being given a generic seizure medication that doesn’t work as well for him, instead of the medications he has been prescribed for years.
“I’m trying to get him sent to Georgia Regional [Hospital] because I feel like the system is failing my son,” she said.
Jails aren’t equipped to address mental illness
High, a father of four, was arrested June 6 for allegedly following a woman and her teenage daughter from a convenience store into their airport hotel and refusing to leave. Management eventually escorted him off the property as police arrived. He was initially charged with simple assault, criminal trespass, and obstruction of justice for allegedly spitting on the arresting officers.
Before he was booked into Rice Street, High was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital to treat his injuries. Williams said she believes the injuries were caused by the arresting officers; however, the police report describes them as having happened prior to the arrest. According to the police report, while at Grady, High set fire to the bed he was laying in with a lighter he had hidden in his anal cavity.
“That in and of itself should have told y’all he had a mental health issue,” Williams said.
Since the arrest, she said that her son has had multiple physical altercations with law enforcement officers, each resulting in more criminal charges.
“I called intake, and I was trying to let them know about his mental health situation, and they told me I can’t call and tell them anything, that the doctor in the jail has to be the one to say he has bipolar schizophrenia and seizures,” Williams said.
A spokesperson for the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on Williams’ assertion that her son isn’t receiving the medication he needs. In a statement to Capital B Atlanta, officials said: “We cannot disclose medical information regarding our residents to the public. If the mother has concerns, the jail can address them with her.”
But according to Williams, she has made multiple attempts to advocate for her son with jail officials with little success.
“Nobody’s listening to me, nobody’s doing nothing about it. Everybody’s doing what they want to do, how they want to do it,” she said.
In the most recent incident on June 19, High told his mother that the guards dropped him on his head. She said it left him unable to move the left side of his face.
“When I called watch command to ask about him, she told me, ‘Did you know your son injured a deputy so bad he’s been out of work and he might have to get surgery?’ and I told her, ‘I don’t care,’” Williams said.
“If they had listened to me when I told them about his mental illness, my son nor the guard would be hurt.”
No court date, no help
Excessive use of force against mentally ill incarcerated people was another focus in the Justice Department’s report. Investigators found that jail staff regularly use force without first attempting to de-escalate. The report identified three primary causes, understaffing, poor policies and supervisors filing to identify, correct and discipline officers.
Based on the guidelines of the consent decree, the sheriff’s office must implement clear guidance and provide corrections officers with training on what is an appropriate use of force and what constitutes excessive force.
In May, the Fulton County Board of Commissioners also approved $1.8 million per quarter for the Detention Services Incentive Fund to pay for additional corrections officers to work in Fulton County Jail facilities.
Read More: Overcrowded and Understaffed: Fulton County Jail Gets Money to Hire More Deputies
During Wednesday’s board meeting, however, District 3 Commissioner Dana Barrett revealed that no money had been transferred because Sheriff Pat Labat objects to the portion of the bill requiring that he produce a quarterly report for the commissioners on where each employee is assigned. She has introduced a motion to remove that part of the original legislation.
The commissioners ended up voting 5-2 to file Barrett’s motion for further discussion — she and commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr. were the two no votes.
High remains incarcerated at Rice Street without another court date. His public defender is working to get him placed in a psychiatric mental health program instead of pre-trial detention, which can often take months for a spot to open.
Williams said she is remaining hopeful, in part because earlier this week her son was assigned a social worker that is trying to get him transferred to Grady temporarily while he awaits placement in a mental health treatment program.
Capital B Atlanta reached out to the judge-appointed consent decree monitor, but did not receive a response in time for publication.
“I don’t want my son to lose his life at Rice Street,” Williams said. “They have no care for humanity at all.”
