Four inmates at a northwest Georgia prison filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday that says guards punched, kicked, stomped and hit them with batons, inflicting injuries so serious that two were hospitalized and one of them had to have surgery.
The suit is reminiscent of another incident in 1997 at the same institution – Hays State Prison in northwest Georgia in Trion and near LaFayette. In that case, the state had to pay 14 inmates and their lawyers $285,000 to resolve a federal lawsuit that was filed after members of the prison's tactical squad conducted aggressive and bloody searches of inmate cells.
In the case filed Tuesday, the inmates say officers swarmed the D2 dormitory last Aug. 12 after some of the prisoners kicked doors and yelled in protest of something they witnessed from the cellblock windows, guards reportedly roughing up other inmates.
Officers swarmed D2 and at some time one of them was injured, enraging some of the guards, the suit said. “Who hurt my officer?” Capt. Timothy Clark asked one of the inmates, according to the suit.
A Department of Corrections spokeswoman said DOC had not been served with the suit and agency’s policy is to not comment on pending litigation.
All four inmates say in the complaint that they were not resisting and the attacks were unprovoked.
"We are concerned about this continued pattern of violence," said Atteeyah Hollie, an attorney with the Southern Center for Human Rights which filed the case. "All these attacks were unprovoked. They want to see an end to this pattern."
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