CONYERS, Ga. — The attorneys for the family of a Rockdale County Jail inmate suing who have filed a lawsuit held a news conference on Friday.
The family of 22-year-old Shali Tilson of Conyers has filed a lawsuit against the Rockdale County Sheriff, a sergeant and two deputies. In their suit, the family says Tilson died from dehydration while he was locked in solitary confinement at the Rockdale County Jail for nine days in March of 2018.
On Sept. 18, Tilson's family released videos they had recently received which showed the final hours before his death on March 12, 2018.
On Wednesday, Rockdale County District Attorney Alisha Johnson released an 84-page grand jury investigative report.
The report said that over the course of four months, the grand jury toured the jail, reviewed documents, watched videos and listened to recorded interviews.
At Friday's news conference, family attorney Mawuli Davis said the blame for Tilson's death lay squarely with Rockdale County Sheriff Eric Levett.
Davis said that the grand jury report shows that through complacency and a lack of leadership was present at all levels within the jail.
The report concluded that no one individual person was responsible for Tilson's death. It also said that staff failed to recognize and adequately address his mental state and physical decline.
"The Grand Jury found that medical, mental health, and jail staff through complacency, reluctance, assumptions and lack of procedures, training, leadership and adherence to policy, failed to recognize and adequately address the mental state and physical decline of Shali Tilson," Johnson's letter said.
"The grand jury heard from more than 60 witnesses," Davis said. "They concluded that there was a level of arrogance, defiance, incompetence, resentment and low morale from some jail employees that points to a crisis of leadership."
The grand jury's report said they did not find any evidence that any single person intentionally caused Tilson's death.
However, Davis pointed to the fact that Tilson had been placed on suicide watch without any supporting medical documentation which would indicate a reason for this happening.
"He was on suicide watch, but no paperwork was filed," Davis said. "That's a failure -- to have someone locked away for seven days and not be able to justify why; not be able to explain why. There's no indication in any medical record that he was suicidal."
According to police reports, when he was first arrested, Tilson was found trying to kick in a door and yelling profanities. When Conyers police officers took him into custody, they said he fought and resisted through the entire booking process -- so much so, that he was strapped into a transport chair when he arrived at the jail.
Police said Tilson became aggressive again when officers read the warrants to him. According to the report, Tilson asked them why they didn't just shoot him.
They said during his time in jail, from March 4 to March 6, Tilson was involved in five incidents which generated use-of-force reports. He was moved into segregation and then moved to a padded holding cell on suicide watch.
That is where he spent the final seven days of his life.
Following his death, the GBI performed an autopsy on Tilson. Investigators determined his cause of death to be pulmonary thrombi due to dehydration, essentially blood clots that traveled to the lungs.
A subdural hemorrhage, or bleeding in the brain usually associated with traumatic brain injury, was also found during the autopsy. However, investigators were unable to say exactly how it happened. No other fractures or injuries were found.
After the autopsy, the manner of death was ruled to be "undetermined."
In a statement, the sheriff’s office said they have already begun implementing measures designed to prevent the recurrence of a similar incident.
The grand jury report includes remedial policy changes officials at the Rockdale County Jail say they are implementing in the wake of Tilson's death. The grand jury report recommends additional significant changes to jail procedures in order to prevent similar deaths in the future.
Tilson's family said that while these changes are needed, this is not enough.
"Our rage and upset is an understatement," said Tilson's mother, Tynesha Tilson.
Davis said that Sheriff Levett must resign and that the deputies who were assigned to watch and care for Tilson should be held to account for his death.
The family is continuing their pursuit of financial damages in the form of their lawsuit, Davis said.