FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Following a recent case of a jail inmate needing multiple amputations while in the custody of the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, three county commissioners are pushing for the governor’s office to step in.
Under Georgia law, the governor is the highest oversight authority over sheriffs in the state.
A former inmate at the Fulton County Jail, Rashaad Muhammad, had both legs and several fingers amputated after spending 188 days in custody, 177 of which were in medical treatment at Grady Memorial Hospital.
Muhammad and his legal counsel, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, said jail staff were at fault, by not providing medical care while Muhammad “begged” for treatment.
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At the most recent commission meeting, Vice Chair Khadijah Abdur-Rahman was the first commissioner to call for more accountability, and to call on Gov. Brian Kemp to act.
She was joined in her appeal during the meeting by Comms. Bob Ellis and Bridget Thorne, both of whom are Republicans, while Abdur-Rahman is a Democrat.
Commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr. pushed back on the comments, saying an investigation was needed to determine the facts before anyone jumped to conclusions.
At the commission meeting, Arrington said Labat had already requested assistance in the matter from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
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On Thursday, the GBI confirmed they were performing a preliminary review of the jail related to medical neglect, stemming from the situation with Muhammad.
Abdur-Rahman spoke after a series of Fulton County residents urged oversight and reform during the public comment portion.
Abdur-Rahman said the governor needed to open an investigation into Labat and the sheriff’s office operations under his leadership or suspend him from office to investigate.
Among the public comments, one Fulton County resident, who did not identify herself, urged the same, saying “Sheriff Pat Labat, has been in trouble, ignored trouble and facilitated trouble at the Rice Street Jail for over five years” and referring to the consent decree between the county and U.S. Department of Justice over civil rights violations related to jail conditions.
The commenter said that Kemp should “suspend Sheriff Pat Labat for dereliction of duty, long-term malfeasance and misconduct, as is his legal prerogative,” saying the Fulton County Sheriff’s “actions and inactions are far more egregious than sheriffs Gov. Kemp removed in Towns County and Hall County the last two years.”
Similarly, Abdur-Rahman said complaints about what’s been happening at the Rice Street Jail are “not just complaints. They are a collective cry for help from a community that feels its safety and its tax dollars are being treated with reckless disregard. As the current sitting vice chair, I cannot and will not sit in silence while the performance of the sheriff’s office continues to deteriorate to a level that can only be described as unconstitutional and dangerous.”
She said the county had committed hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to the sheriff’s office to improve conditions at the jail and increase staffing levels, but said “the reckless performance cited by so many...still persists.”
Abdur-Rahman explicitly appealed to Kemp to use his power to “intervene, to investigate and to consider the suspension” of Labat from office.
Arrington said that while what happened to Muhammad was “unimaginable,” he could not hold the sheriff solely responsible.
Instead, he urged patience and for the investigation to provide the facts needed to take additional steps.
“I think we should all take a step back, get the investigation results, find out exactly what happened. Because I’ve heard one story from the attorney. I’ve heard another story from Sheriff Labat. I think the first step in anything is an investigation,” Arrington said. “And I don’t think the sheriff’s office can conduct that investigation because they’re part of it, right? So there has to be someone on the outside. I spoke with Sheriff Labat and he has contacted or reached out to the GBI to see if this is something that they in fact can investigate. But I think we should all be very careful to jump to conclusions.”
Channel 2 Action News reached out to the sheriff’s office for comment, as well as the governor’s office and is waiting for responses.
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