Justice Department to investigate jail conditions in Georgia’s most populous county

By KATE BRUMBACK
Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into jail conditions in Georgia’s most populous county, with officials citing violence, filthy conditions and the death last year of a man whose body was found covered in insects. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said during a news conference Thursday that investigators will look at living conditions, access to medical and mental health care, use of excessive force by staff and conditions that may give rise to violence between people held in Fulton County jails. The county’s main jail is in Atlanta.