An inmate was killed in a stabbing at Fulton County Jail. It’s the jail’s fifth death since the end of July

By Devon M. Sayers and Christina Maxouris, CNN

(CNN) — A detainee was killed and four other inmates injured in a mass stabbing at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, according to the Fulton County Sheriff.

The situation was “under control” by Thursday afternoon and an investigation is ongoing, Fulton County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Natalie Ammons told CNN.

Dayvion Blake, 23, was killed in the incident, three other inmates were taken to a hospital “all with stab wounds,” and a fifth person was treated by jail medical staff, the department said.

The Atlanta Police Department was contacted by the sheriff’s office to launch a homicide investigation, which is ongoing. The sheriff’s office said Atlanta police “will release the names and criminal charges of the inmates involved in this incident.”

“Preliminary investigation reveals the inmate suffered injuries from a dispute with multiple inmates involving weapons. The inmate was transported to Grady Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries,” the department said in a news release.

Fulton County Sheriff Patrick “Pat” Labat said in a statement the recent outbreak of violence at the jail “is of grave concern but unfortunately is not surprising considering the long-standing, dangerous overcrowding and the crumbling walls of the facility that are literally being crafted into makeshift weapons that inmates use to attack each other and staff.”

This is the fifth death of a Fulton County Jail inmate since the end of July.

The sheriff’s office said 40-year-old Montay Stinson was found unresponsive in his cell on the night of July 31. Stinson, who was found with “no obvious signs of injury,” according to the sheriff’s office, was being held on a second-degree burglary charge with a $3,000 bond.

On the evening of August 10, a detention officer found 34-year-old Christopher Smith unresponsive. Smith was resuscitated and taken to a hospital, the sheriff’s office said in a news release. He died shortly after, on the morning of August 11.

He was being held on felony and misdemeanor charges without bond, the office said.

On August 17, 66-year-old Alexander Hawkins was found unresponsive in a medical unit cell and died, the sheriff’s office said. He had been arrested just over two weeks earlier and was being held on a shoplifting charge with a $5,000 bond.

On Saturday, 34-year-old Samuel Lawrence was found unresponsive in his cell during dinner rounds, according to the sheriff’s office.

Lawrence was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead. He had been arrested on December 26 and was being held for second-degree arson on a $30,000 bond, the sheriff’s office said.

Lawrence had filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the facility just days before his death, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by CNN.

In his 16-page handwritten complaint, Lawrence detailed incidents of deputies using excessive force, kicking him while he was handcuffed, using pepper spray on him, as well as tasing him in the chest while in a medical bed.

Lawrence claimed he did not receive medical treatment for the injuries he sustained. In his complaint, Lawrence also said he was being kept in isolation with no access to water or a working toilet and slept on a hard metal floor. Lawrence also accused deputies at the jail of failing to report some of the incidents.

CNN has reached out to the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office for comment specifically regarding the lawsuit.

In each news release announcing the deaths, the sheriff’s office said the county medical examiner’s office will perform an autopsy to determine the cause and manner of death.

CNN reached out to the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office for comment.

There have been nine in-custody deaths in 2023, Ammons said. Final autopsy reports have not been released for all of them, Ammons added.

During an unrelated news conference Thursday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis did not take questions about the detainee’s death but was asked about conditions in the jail.

“Since I was a candidate for district attorney, I stated that … we should have had a new jail 15 years ago, and we’re not going to let people bury their heads in the sand and act like they didn’t know we needed a new jail,” Willis said.

“Atlanta and Fulton County has become too big. It (the jail) was antiquated the day they built it,” Willis said, later adding: “People deserve to be housed humanely, even when they’ve been accused of crimes.”

“We need a bigger facility, and it needs to be a facility that treats people humanely,” she said.

Detainees ‘crafting shanks from the crumbling walls’

Last month, the Justice Department announced it was launching a civil rights investigation into the jail for dilapidated and unsanitary conditions, as well as violence against detainees.

Throughout the course of the probe, the department will look into the conditions in which inmates are held, their access to mental and physical health care and violence perpetrated against detainees, CNN has previously reported.

The investigation will also look into whether the jail discriminates against detainees with psychiatric disabilities.

“Following Mr. Thompson’s death, evidence emerged that the mental health unit where he died was infested with insects and that the majority of people living in that unit were malnourished and not receiving basic care,” Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the DOJ, said during a July news conference.

The investigation was sparked, in part, by the death of LaShawn Thompson, who died in the jail’s mental health unit last year “covered in lice and filth,” Clarke said.

Clarke also spoke of “exceedingly poor conditions” at the jail, including large holes in walls and flooding in housing units, and a level of violence in the jail he called “deeply concerning.”

“The sheriff reported that people are ‘crafting shanks from the crumbling walls’ of the main jail,” Clarke said.

“I have been very transparent about the urgent need for a replacement jail that uses smart technology and other common-sense cost saving measures that will relieve the dangerous overcrowding, improve security, provide humane detainment and most importantly save lives,” Labat said in a statement.

Footage from inside the jail, taken earlier this year by Atlanta TV station WAGA, showed flooding, detainees sleeping in hallways, doors off their hinges and disintegrating walls.

Former President Donald Trump and 18 other co-defendants were booked into the same jail earlier this month, but only one – Harrison Floyd – was held there. Floyd surrendered at the jail on August 24 and was released Wednesday, August 30.

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CNN’s Jamiel Lynch and Chris Youd contributed to this report.