Fulton County commissioners want Sheriff Patrick Labat to explain his department’s dealings with Alpharetta technology company Talitrix, which is contracted to provide 1,000 health-monitoring wristbands for inmates in the overcrowded jail at 901 Rice St.
Commissioner Bob Ellis initiated that demand at Wednesday’s commission meeting, seeking to revisit the nearly $5.4 million commissioners approved in April for emergency fixes to the jail.
Chief among Ellis’ targets is $2.1 million earmarked for 1,000 of the high-tech wristbands, which are described as GPS-linked devices that monitor inmates’ heart rate and blood pressure, and could be integrated with jail cameras for faster medical responses.
Labat said in April that the wristbands would arrive in July, but that apparently didn’t happen until September, according to Ellis. In the meantime five inmates died at the jail — and as of last month, only 15 wristbands were in use at the Rice Street jail, the commissioner said.
Sheriff spokesperson Natalie Ammons told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Wednesday that 53 of the wristbands are currently in use.
“The 1,000 bands do not equate to 1,000 inmates being equipped,” she said.
The initial goal is to use them on all 450 inmates on the jail’s medical floor, Ammons said.
“The bands have a 30-day battery life, so as bands are charged, new bands would be placed on inmates,” she said. “Extra are on hand in the event of damages and the need for replacement bands.”
The jail also needs to upgrade some infrastructure to fully use the technology, but it’s difficult to empty areas for that work due to extreme overcrowding, Ammons said.
Ellis said documents show Labat and Talitrix entered into a three-year “monitoring agreement” in September 2021. It’s unclear how much the sheriff’s office paid Talitrix before the April appropriation, but at least $230,000 went to the company in 2022 from the sheriff’s “inmate welfare fund,” according to Ellis.
Ellis alleged “clear misrepresentation” about the preexisting relationship between the sheriff’s office and Talitrix, and how much had been paid. He wants Labat to answer questions at the Oct. 18 commission meeting.
No representative of the sheriff’s office spoke or appeared to be present during the commission debate, but Ammons provided a statement late Wednesday saying the Sheriff would oblige.
The county’s senior staff all said they had no part in Labat’s agreement with Talitrix, except for processing the paperwork. The negotiations, they said, were the sheriff’s purview.
The county finance department shows an initial payment of $733,687 going to Talitrix on April 26, Ellis said. He wants Labat to end the contract with Talitrix and make no further payments. If that doesn’t happen, commissioners should “explore all our options” — perhaps seeking the return of the approved funding and not paying out more until items are clearly delivered, Ellis said.
Alton Adams, county chief operating officer for Justice, Public Safety & Technology, said the wristbands appeared experimental, and he has told Labat that he was concerned about “beta testing” on such a large scale.
Commissioner Dana Barrett said the monitors weren’t portrayed as experimental to commissioners.
“It was presented as a solution for the Rice Street Jail, trying to keep people alive there,” she said.
The Cobb Sheriff’s Office announced last year it was trying out wristbands marketed by Alabama-based Black Creek Integrated Systems. DeKalb and Gwinnett counties have also explored usage of the technology.
Labat this spring asked for funds to buy mail scanners, surveillance cameras and more. He requested the money as an emergency appropriation after relatives of a deceased inmate sued the county.
On Sept. 13, 2022, Lashawn Thompson, a 35-year-old man, died in one of the jail’s mental health cells after being held for three months on a misdemeanor charge. His family alleges in a lawsuit that he died covered in bedbugs and that jail staff ignored his deteriorating health.
The county has since settled with Thompson’s family for $4 million, but a federal investigation into the jail has been opened related to his death.
Thompson was one of 64 inmates who died in the Fulton jail between 2009 and October 2022, the most of any Georgia jail during that time. Ten inmates have died in the past year.
The commissioners’ discussion came the same day as Georgia Senate leaders announced an investigation into the jail’s overcrowding and dangerous conditions. The new subcommittee could start hearings in November.
Labat has recently proposed moving up to 1,000 inmates to private prisons in Mississippi and south Georgia, estimated to cost up to $40 million a year. Commissioners held no direct discussion on that, but it was the topic for more than a dozen people during the meeting’s public comment period.
Many said they spoke on behalf of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which has previously protested conditions at the Fulton jail in the wake of inmate deaths.
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