Clayton County government officials reached a settlement earlier this month with a Virginia man who alleged he was severely beaten while detained in the county jail under the leadership of former Sheriff Victor Hill.
The Clayton Commission on July 2 approved a $5 million settlement with Gabriel Arries, almost three years after he filed a federal lawsuit against Hill and nine jailers.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in August 2021, was one of around 30 naming Hill since 2020, including litigation submitted in May by three men named in a federal criminal indictment of Hill over the improper use of restraint chairs.
Hill was convicted by a jury in October 2022 of criminal felonies for strapping the men and three others in the chairs for hours as a form of punishment. He spent about 10 months in an Arkansas federal prison before being released in March.
Hill also has been the subject of several civil service complaints from sheriff’s office staff. In recent months, the county paid two former deputies terminated by Hill almost $700,000 in backpay after they won civil service complaints.
The Arries lawsuit does not accuse Hill of participating in the alleged beatings, but names him in his capacity as then sheriff of Clayton County.
Arries, who lived in Los Angeles at the time of his detainment, was arrested by Atlanta Police Department in February 2021 at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on charges of disorderly conduct, and transported to the Clayton County jail.
Those arrested at the airport are taken to the Clayton jail because the majority of it is located in Clayton.
In his lawsuit, Arries, who is bipolar and suffers from mood disorders, alleged his thoughts were disorganized at the time of the incident because of his illness and that he did not know he was in the state of Georgia. Because of this, he was combative and shouting racial epithets, the lawsuit alleged.
He alleges that jail staff took him to a shower area and “repeatedly, maliciously, and violently” beat him, according to the lawsuit. He was later strapped to a restraint chair for several hours before allegedly being beaten again.
After being moved to a cell with seven other detainees, Arries got into a fight with one of the men, according to the lawsuit. Arries was moved to a medical cell because of injuries he sustained in the skirmish and was later taken to Atlanta Medical Center.
At the hospital, doctors examinations concluded he had “a severe traumatic brain injury, subdural hematoma, subarachnoid hemorrhage, and closed fracture of nasal bone” caused by the jail staff beatings, the lawsuit alleged.
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