‘DISTURBING’

Man Died of ‘Severe Neglect’ in Bug-Infested Georgia Jail Cell, Lawyers Say

“This is the most deplorable death in custody case in the history of America.”

A man found unresponsive and covered in bug bites inside a squalid Georgia jail cell died as a result of “severe neglect” from the facility’s staff, his family’s lawyers said Monday after commissioning an independent autopsy. Lashawn Thompson, 35, was arrested in June 2022 on a misdemeanor battery charge in Atlanta. In September, Thompson was found in his cell in the psychiatric wing of the Fulton County Jail malnourished, dehydrated, and his body “infested inside and out with insects,” attorneys Ben Crump and Michael Harper said. “This is the most deplorable death in custody case in the history of America,” Crump said at a news conference Monday. Reading from the autopsy—funded by civil rights activist and NFL star Colin Kaepernick—Crump said that Thompson had “innumerable” bug bites and that he had not received treatment for his schizophrenia in the lead up to his death. The autopsy said the manner of Thompson’s death was a homicide, though the medical term doesn’t draw a legal conclusion in the death. Brad McCray, Thompson’s brother, said it was “disturbing” seeing images of the conditions of Thompson’s jail cell shared online. “I have another brother, and seeing these images and going through this as a family sent him into a mental breakdown,” McCray said.