Victor Hill, the controversial former Clayton County sheriff who cultivated a tough guy persona that became so well known that it led to his cop car being included in the Grand Theft Auto video game franchise, is expected to report to a federal prison in Arkansas by noon today.
A federal jury in October found the ex-lawman guilty of violating the civil rights of six Clayton County jail detainees by ordering them strapped to restraint chairs as punishment. The chairs can only lawfully be used to prevent detainees from harming themselves or others.
Hill was sentenced in March to 18 months in prison, six years of probation and 100 hours of community service. He will be confined at FCI Forrest City in Forrest City, Arkansas. The federal bureau of prisons describes FCI Forrest City as “a low-security facility with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp.”
Hill presided as sheriff of Clayton County for about 15 years, many of which saw him embroiled in scandal. He faced a 37-count indictment in 2012 (a Clayton County jury acquitted him on all counts), was charged with reckless conduct in the accidental shooting of a woman while practicing “police tactics” at a Gwinnett County mobile home, and in 2018 arrested the wife of a potential opponent for the sheriff’s position.
Credit: Lauren Lacy for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Lauren Lacy for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Throughout his tenure, he remained popular among many Clayton residents, who elected him four times. Supporters lauded him for arrests made by his elite fugitive squad, for projecting a no-nonsense aura that they said made criminals think twice about wrongdoing in Clayton County, and for sending cards to moms on birthdays and Mother’s Day.
“Crime didn’t go up until a certain person was gone,” Clayton Commissioner Felicia Franklin, a supporter of Hill’s, said during discussions of a sheriff’s office budget request at a recent commission meeting.
Detractors, however, say Hill was a bully whose antics stifled economic growth in Clayton County. They point to numerous deaths at the jail and the dozens of lawsuits filed by detainees, former Clayton deputies and others against Hill as a financial drain on the county and corrosive to Clayton’s reputation.
“The public needs to know what a terrifying and unsafe place the Clayton County Jail is,” Jamie Mills, a former detainee at the jail, told the Southern Center for Human Rights, which sued the Clayton sheriff’s office for overcrowding during the pandemic. “People should know what is happening in their backyards, what is happening with their tax dollars.”
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