In April of 2020, Chryshon Hollins got into an argument with his mother over slow wi-fi at their home, and went into a rage.
The 17-year-old Clayton County youth turned over a table, broke a window and trashed the kitchen by pulling food out of the refrigerator and throwing it all over the floor. He then went outside and emptied the family’s refuse bin on the driveway, the street and in a neighbor’s yard.
Hollins was arrested and taken to the Clayton County Jail where he spent more than 10 hours in a restraint chair, much of it immobile with his wrists tightly handcuffed behind his back.
That was the testimony Monday at the federal trial for Clayton Sheriff Victor Hill, who is accused of violating the civil rights of several detainees by using restraint chairs as a form of punishment.
A detainee who also had been strapped to a restraint chair in the same room that day had urinated on himself, and Hollins struggled to use his feet to push the heavy device away from the other man, who provided testimony to the jury last week.
“I was really scared because I had never been in any chair like that,” Hollins said.
Hollins, now 19, said he had never been arrested and that he didn’t know what to expect. He cried throughout, according to his testimony.
“It really felt like torture,” said Hollins, who said he was put in the chair twice — when he first arrived at the jail for four hours, and then later for another six hours. The second incident, Hollins said, happened when Hill arrived at the facility early the next morning.
“My wrists were hurting,” Hollins said. “I didn’t want to use the restroom on myself.”
Hill, the longtime sheriff of the south metro Atlanta community who bills himself as “The Crime Fighter,” was indicted in April 2021 on charges of violating the civil rights of seven detainees by putting them in the chairs, even though they were cooperative and presented no risk to jailers or law enforcement.
Hill has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
Federal law, as well as jail policy, allows the chairs to be used temporarily to restrain a person who is threatening, unruly and a danger to himself or others until that person can be brought under control. Detainees can be restrained in the chairs for up to four hours, according to Clayton’s jail policy.
Much of Monday’s testimony focused on the detainees’ compliance.
Prosecutors called several former sheriff’s office employees to testify that they believed the use of the chairs was unnecessary because the men were not threatening to sheriff’s office staff or themselves.
“Inmate Hollins complied and sat in the restraint chair voluntarily,” Anthony Washington, a former Clayton sheriff’s office sergeant, read from a report he filed of the incident.
Defense attorneys pointed out that the witnesses had brief encounters with several of the men, mostly to strap them into the chairs. Marissa Goldberg, for instance, asked if Washington was at the scene at Hollins’ home and witnessed the destruction that let him to jail. Washington said no.
Goldberg also said that the sheriff’s office made sure that medical personnel monitored the men while in the restraint chairs and that there were other officers present as witnesses when the detainees were restrained as guidelines dictated.
FBI field and forensic agents also testified that Hill sent photos and videos of several of the detainees, including during his interrogations of them and photos of them in the restraint chairs. One photo was of Chryshon in the back of a Clayton County Police vehicle, with what appeared to be streaks on his face from crying.
The federal agents also revealed text messages, phone calls and Facetime correspondence between Hill and detainee Glenn Howell, a Butts County landscaper, in late April 2020. Howell and a Clayton County deputy had become embroiled in a dispute over payment for Howell’s services.
In one message, Hill warns Howell not to call, text or Facetime him again or he will charged with harassing phone calls. But FBI field agent Ray Evans said it was Hill who made the first call after the deputy reached out to the sheriff about the dispute.
Hill later swore out an arrest warrant against Howell after their interactions turned sour. Howell, who turned himself in shortly after Hill unsuccessfully sent a fugitive squad into Butts County to get him, was later put in a restraint chair.
Another detainee, Raheem Peterkin, took the stand and explained his time in the restraint chair. He was arrested at his home in 2019 after a standoff with police, who had been called to the residence because he was seen pointing a gun at two men in a car.
Police spent nearly an hour pleading with him to leave the house before he came outside, defense attorney Drew Findling said.
Peterkin said he wanted to wait on his girlfriend to get home before surrendering to police because he was scared.
Peterkin was taken to the Clayton jail, placed in a holding cell and the handcuffs on his wrists removed. About a minute later, Sheriff Hill arrived with his elite Scorpion Response Team and berated him, Peterkin said.
Hill ordered staff to put Peterkin in a restraint chair, where he remained for four hours. His hands were handcuffed behind his back. Prosecutors showed pictures of Peterkin’s wrists, claiming the handcuffs dug so deeply into his skin that he still has scars.
Peterkin said he urinated on himself during the confinement in the chair.
“It was the worst thing I ever felt,” Peterkin said.
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