FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Thursday the Fulton County sheriff’s office representatives started what officials describe as an audit of the more than 2,000 people in the county's decaying and overcrowded jail.
This comes after the departures of top staff and the much-publicized death of an inmate whose family says he was eaten alive by bed bugs in Georgia’s largest county jail.
As they entered a cellblock, accompanied by an 11Alive news crew, they immediately heard complaints from inmates.
"It's been bad as hell here man," said Ahmad Trowell, jailed April 23 for an aggravated battery charge. County records indicate he had checked into the jail on previous occasions.
"The showers are nasty. There’s bugs in there. They don’t give us nothing to clean the stools in there," added Garrison Cooper, arrested April 25 on theft and burglary charges.
"The toilet’s been stopped up for a minute and the showers got mold in them," added Alvarez Norris, arrested April 17 for failing to appear for fingerprinting on a previous charge of illegally entering a motor vehicle.
In one jail pod, men were lodged two to a cell with an overflow of detainees on a floor, on what they call boats.
"The downstairs showers don’t work. Phones ain't working. TV ain't working. Kiosk ain't working. Can’t flush the toilet in the day room," Trowell rattled off to 11Alive as deputies listened. An electronic kiosk is used by inmates to communicate with staff.
Sheriff Patrick Labat initiated the audit after ousting the three top jail staffers. He described what's happening inside the jail as a "large-scale humanitarian crisis," Labat said.
He led the contingent of staff who, he said, were in place to document inmate issues and jail conditions.
Last weekend, jailers emptied an inmate pod after they realized a pool of water had formed on the floor from a plumbing leak.
"We had thirty people living in these conditions. It’s absolutely inhumane," Labat said.
Photos: A look inside the Fulton County Jail
Labat said he’s moved hundreds of inmates to four other jails around north Georgia. For those left in the aging and overcrowded county jail, the sheriff said his auditors will make biweekly sweeps through the cell blocks in search of quick solutions to often chronic problems.
"They treat us like animals, and all of us in here is not really bad persons," Cooper said. "We ain't starting stuff, trying to fight one another. All of us aren’t like that."
Officials estimate replacing the Fulton County jail would cost about a billion dollars – money that is not easy to find.