COBB COUNTY, Ga. — The Cobb County Sheriff’s Office frequently conducts shakedowns to ensure deputies, inmates and the overall facility remains safe.
Deputies found a small amount of contraband during a shakedown at the Cobb County Adult Detention Center, on Friday.
Channel 2 Cobb County Bureau Chief Michele Newell was the only reporter to see the operation.
Colonel Michael Williams the division commander who has been with the sheriff’s office since 1990, showed Newell a table covered with protective gear deputies equip themselves with prior to the operation.
[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]
Lt. Adam Clemmer thoroughly briefed deputies on the mission of the shakedown before it began.
“This is going to be a standard dorm search, alright?,” he said.
Deputies looked for drug paraphernalia, weapons and excess laundry in a maximum security section of the jail that houses inmates who are awaiting trial for felony crimes.
“The primary focus of the shakedown is to protect the inmates from each other as well as make sure the deputies are not harmed,” said Col. Williams.
Deputies didn’t find drugs or cellphones, but they did find a small piece of sharp plastic an inmate likely removed from a tablet.
“You can see where it’s been sharpened they used the concrete. They may add paper, part of a book or metal that they might find as a handle and that will be the beginning of a shank,” said Lt. Clemmer.
TRENDING STORIES:
- Officer reveals why he shot, killed family’s miniature donkey ‘HeeHaw’
- TikTok trend gets teens charged for trespassing in $1M home
- Ex-KSU student had been dead for days; roommates didn’t notice
Deputies did find a shank discarded in trash.
They also found a makeshift tattoo gun, a battery from a tablet and a small ball of cellophane.
“Cellophane from a sandwich sometimes these are special trays and they’ll wrap them. They’ll just sit there and they’ll make these as hard as they can and if you listen to it…..that and itself is enough to knock someone a little bit loopy, it could damage if it hits an eye,” said Lt. Clemmer
Lt. Clemmer said inmates are known to make things that aren’t harmful, simply out of boredom. But those items can take longer for deputies to search. Lt. Clemmer spent at least five minutes unraveling a ball of numerous socks, eventually discovering some paper inside.
It turned out to be nothing, but it’s important to investigate whatever deputies come across that could be used to hide contraband.
[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
©2026 Cox Media Group
