Log on to WSBTV.com or AJC.com to watch raw video of George Ward struggling to complete recruit training for new sheriff’s deputies that he participated in the day before he died.
“I’m absolutely troubled by a death of a recruit in the hands of men and women who work for DeKalb County,” May said. “I think there are still questions.”
After reviewing new video of training that took place a day before George Ward's death last year, DeKalb medical examiners have also changed his manner of death from "natural" to "undetermined."
“I have lost faith and hope that I would ever get any answers to what happened to my son,” Lorraine Fredericks, Ward’s mother, told Channel 2.
The last time Fredericks saw her 29-year-old son alive was on a trip to Atlanta in early May 2013. Ward was living with a cousin while he prepared to move his children and fiancé to Georgia permanently. Fredericks fussed over Ward, asking him if he was sure he wanted to leave his home in the U.S. Virgin Islands to be a jailer for the DeKalb County Sheriff’s office.
Ward had been a corrections officer in St. Thomas for years.
“Are you sure you want to do that?’” Fredericks recalled asking her son. “He said, yes, he wanted to do it. I said, ‘Okay you have my blessings.’”
After his second day on the job, Ward was dead.
“I just want to wake up after this nightmare,” Fredericks said. “George, please, I just need to know what happened.”
More than a year later his death, Channel 2 received numerous tips from DeKalb Sheriff’s Office insiders who were concerned about how Ward died. Most had never met Ward, but knew of the jail recruit who did not survive training. The DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s office said Ward died on the job when he succumbed to a preexisting heart condition.
But two videos obtained by Channel 2 tell a different story about the events of May 21, 2013 — Ward’s last conscious hours. The first, a surveillance video from high above a jailhouse courtyard, depicted recruits in formation.
They are seen doing a number of activities: wall sits, push-ups, jump and jacks. The video also showed a drill sergeant with a video camera.
After pressuring DeKalb County officials about the camcorder footage, Channel 2 received tapes that gave a glimpse into Ward’s final hours.
At first he struggled to keep up — then he struggled to breath.
According to time stamps on the footage, Ward appeared to be vomiting nearly 30 minutes into the exercises. There are many moments were he can’t keep up; he even hunched over while drill sergeants continued to push him to perform.
The Sheriff’s Office had never told Fredericks about the tape. Her eyes darted back and forth across a laptop as she saw her oldest son during his second-and final-day on the job.
Moments after Ward appeared to vomit a second time on the video, Fredericks saw something that made her sick.
“Why does he have on a pink shirt? Why does my son have on a pink shirt? Did they single him out?” Fredericks asked.
The footage showed drill instructors giving Ward a bright pink hat and shirt. After he put on the clothing, he was pulled away from the group, where instructors appeared to push him harder.
“So my son was humiliated right before he died?” Fredericks asked. “I mean, what would be the purpose?”
The footage continued, showing more exercises around the DeKalb County Jail. According to the video’s time stamp, shortly after 8:30 a.m., the recruits piled onto a white bus where they were told to drink water.
There is an hour and a half between boarding the bus and the next footage. Recruits were shown at Panthersville Field in DeKalb, performing more exercises. Ward continued to struggle as drill instructors shouted, and called him “Pinky.”
The temperature reached 80 degrees that day, and humidity levels were, at times, 100 percent. Drill instructors and recruits were visibly sweating. Ward’s pink shirt and hat were soaked through.
While on the field, drill instructors told recruits to circle around Ward as he laid on the ground, struggling, sources told Channel 2. Some placed flowers and weeds on Ward — mocking a funeral scene.
There was video of the recruits continuing to exercise until after 10 a.m. The last 30 minutes of activities were not filmed. The last clip of George Ward showed him getting back on the bus. There were two drill instructors helping him walk. Within minutes of the final video Ward was seizing and unresponsive, according to sources and medical records.
Temperature hits 107.1
Sources also told Channel 2 drill that instructors did not initially believe Ward was in distress. Ultimately, recruits asked to aid Ward while he struggled on the bus. There were no EMTs present during the morning, but head trainer Major Laura Roscoe did have first responder training, according to law enforcement records.
After the bus made the eight and a half mile drive from Panthersville stadium to the jail, Major Roscoe called for EMS. Emergency call logs indicate it took EMS more than 30 minutes to arrive.
Ward was treated for hyperthermia and multi-organ failure at the DeKalb Medical Center on May 21 through the following afternoon, according to medical records. His admitting temperature was 107.1 degrees. At 1:46 p.m. on May 22, Ward succumbed to his injuries when his heart stopped.
The DeKalb County Medical Examiner said Ward died of a heart condition: probable ischemic heart disease due to complications of multifocal myocardial fibrosis, a type of scaring of the heart. They said the manner of death was a natural one.
DeKalb sheriffs also did not investigate Ward’s death, despite policies that require investigations in cases involving allegations of misconduct.
The DeKalb Sheriff’s Office did not provide Channel 2 with any witness statements or investigative record. Thomas Brown was the sheriff when Ward was a recruit, but newly elected DeKalb Sheriff Jeffery Mann was second in command at the time. Sheriff Mann declined to answer questions about George Ward’s death, but released a statement:
“We continue to grieve the tragic loss last year of Recruit George Ward, and our sympathies are with his family. However, we can see no constructive purpose in re-opening the wounds by participating in a discussion of this unfortunate incident in the news media.”
But when asked, CEO May said, “The sheriff’s office has to continue to address this, I don’t think this is over.”
Fredericks said sheriff’s officials also refused to answer her questions about Wards death.
“I’m heartbroken that the same system that my son wanted to work for and give it his all has turned its back on him and his family,” Fredericks said.
Conflicting autopsy interpretations
With the permission of Ward’s family, Channel 2 gave Ward’s autopsy report and medical records to veteran forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht, who has more than 40 years of experience.
“Upon entry to the hospital they diagnosed this as a multi-organ system failure was made. That’s rather classical when you have someone who develops this kind of heat stroke, this total exhaustion,” Wecht said of the emergency room records that document Ward’s last moments. “That means the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, everything fails.”
When Wecht studied the DeKalb Medical Examiner’s autopsy report he expressed a number of concerns. He said he agreed with their findings of scaring on Ward’s heart, but he found no other symptoms of ischemic heart disease — the listed cause of Ward’s death.
“The autopsy report, interestingly while attributing the death to ischemic heart disease, which means lack of oxygenation, does not find any evidence of hardening of the arteries, atherosclerosis, nor does it find an enlarged heart,” Wecht said. “This was not a classical case of a heart attack in any respect.”
Ward’s mother said Ward received physicals every year, and never showed symptoms of a heart condition.
Ward also passed a mandatory state physical exam before he began training.
Chief Medical Examiner for DeKalb County Gerald Gowitt said he stood behind his department’s findings.
“People can look at this and have different opinions,” Gowitt told Channel 2. “There are always controversial deaths …that nobody agrees on.”
Gowitt said the scarring found in the autopsy was evidence of a heart condition. Gowitt said Ward’s admitting temperature of 107.1 degrees was “anomalous.” He also noted some of the physical activity Ward participated in that morning — a far shorter list than what appeared in the video obtained by Channel 2.
After reviewing the video, however, medical examiners reanalyzed Ward’s death. They provided a statement explaining their new findings, including that they were previously unaware of the extent of his physical activities and that the video illustrates Ward was struggling. The report also stated there was no evidence of what happened in the hour between Ward needing assistance getting on the bus and when he received medical attention.
They changed Ward’s cause of death to “myocardial fibrosis aggravated by physical exertion” with “hyperthermia of unclear etiology” listed as another significant condition.
“It doesn’t give me any closure. It definitely can’t bring back my son,” Fredericks said. “What responsibility are they going to take for killing him, because that’s what they did — they killed him.”
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