A Fulton County inmate died Sunday at Grady Memorial Hospital, days after being found unresponsive in his cell. Ten inmates in the custody of the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office have died this year, six in the past five weeks.
Shawndre Delmore, 24, was found during a routine check by detention officers around 8:15 p.m. Thursday. Jail staff performed lifesaving measures until medical staff arrived, the sheriff’s office said.
He was taken to Grady, where he remained unresponsive and died Sunday.
Delmore was arrested April 1 by Atlanta police on charges of burglary and obstruction. He was granted a $5,000 bond on April 3 that was later reduced to a $2,500 bond in July. The bond was reduced again to a signature bond on both charges on Sept. 1.
The Atlanta Police Department will conduct a death investigation, while the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office will conduct an autopsy.
The Rice Street jail is under review by the U.S. Justice Department. Between 2009 and October 2022, more than 60 Fulton inmates died, the highest total for any jail in Georgia during that time, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found.
On Aug. 31, inmate Dayvion Blake, 23, was killed when “a dispute between a group of inmates” led to multiple stabbings. Three other detainees were taken to Grady, and a fourth was treated by the jail’s medical staff, sheriff’s office spokeswoman Natalie Ammons said.
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat has said his office is in constant negotiations with other detention facilities to house inmates to combat violence and overcrowding.
“The recent outbreak of violence at the Fulton County Jail is of grave concern but unfortunately is not surprising considering the long-standing, dangerous overcrowding and the crumbling walls of the facility that are literally being crafted into makeshift weapons that inmates use to attack each other and staff,” Labat said in a recent statement. “We have had an unfortunate series of deaths this year that range from natural causes, to pre-existing health conditions, to homicide.”
On Aug. 26, Samuel Lawrence, 34, was found unresponsive in his cell and pronounced dead at Grady. Days before he died, Lawrence filed a civil rights complaint against the jail, its deputies and other staff. He said he was starving, thirsty and feared for his life.
According to the sheriff’s office, Lawrence had been arrested by APD and booked to the jail on Dec. 26, 2022 on a second degree arson charge. He was being held on a $30,000 bond.
Alexander Hawkins, 66, was found unresponsive in a medical unit cell on Aug. 17. He was being held on a shoplifting charge and had been granted a $5,000 bond.
Christopher Smith was also found unresponsive by detention officers. He was resuscitated by medical personnel before being taken to Grady, where he died Aug. 11. He had been in jail since October 2019 without bond on several felony and misdemeanor charges.
Earlier in August, Montay Stinson, 40 was found unresponsive with “no obvious signs of injury.” Stinson had been at the jail since October 2022 on a charge of second-degree burglary.
The Justice Department launched a civil rights investigation in July, citing the Sept. 13, 2022 death of Lashawn Thompson, whose body was found covered in insects. His cause of death was undetermined, according to a Fulton County Medical Examiner’s report that noted a severe insect infestation. Fulton County approved a $4 million settlement in that case.
Amid an internal investigation into Thompson’s death in April, Labat announced the resignations of the former chief jailer and two assistant chief jailers.
Plans for a new jail are moving ahead but county commissioners recently failed to approve a plan to pay for the new jail’s design and to keep the old jail running until 2029. The new jail is expected to cost approximately $1.7 billion, with construction projected to last from 2026 through 2028.
County staff sought to establish a reserve fund of up to $40 million from this year’s expected property tax receipts to pay for both planning a new jail and a “bridging plan” proposed by Sheriff Patrick Labat to keep the old jail functioning until a new one is ready, but the plan has stalled in the county commission.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis addressed the troubled facility during a recent news conference, saying, “the reality is we need a bigger facility and it needs to be a facility that treats people humanely.”
AJC staff writers Dylan Jackson, Jeremy Redmon and Jim Gaines contributed to this report.
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