FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Since the beginning of the year, ten inmates have died inside the Fulton County Jail. One of those families is now calling for major changes.
Channel 2′s Audrey Washington was there on Wednesday when the family of Dayvion Blake demanded the jail be shut down.
“He just didn’t deserve that. He was just too good of a person,” said Blake’s aunt, Tonya Briggs.
According to the incident report, on August 31, 2023, a Fulton County jail guard found Blake stabbed to death inside the jail.
“The jail is not working properly. This is an outrage,” the Blake family attorney, Michael Harper, said.
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Harper said a group of inmate rivals previously targeted Blake and attacked him inside the jail.
He told Washington that Blake was still placed on the same isolation unit floor as the rivals.
“They were able to pop the locks, get out of that cell, and stab Dayvion Blake to death, using crumbling jail materials,” Harper explained.
“We are in a crisis,” said Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat.
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Outside of a board of commissioners meeting, Sheriff Labat said he’s working to fix the problems at the jail.
“We have been to the board multiple times, 15 times, requesting assistance to help a plaguing system that is decades old,” Labat said.
Briggs said the sheriff’s response does not go far enough.
“The jail definitely needs to be shut down and he needs to be out of a job,” said Briggs.
Harper said he plans to bring a lawsuit against Fulton County.
He maintained that the case is not about money, but rather about justice and change.
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Channel 2 Action News reached out to the Fulton County Board of Commissioners for comment but did not get a response.
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