‘SPEAKS FOR ITSELF’

Family of Man ‘Eaten Alive’ by Jail Cell Bugs to Get $4 Million

Lashawn Thompson had been in custody for three months on a misdemeanor assault charge when he died from severe neglect, his family said.

Fulton County officials have agreed to pay $4 million to the family of Lashawn Thompson, the 35-year-old man who died of severe neglect in a squalid county jail cell last September. The 6-0 unanimous decision was made in a closed-door executive session on Wednesday, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Khadijah Abdur-Rahman, a county commissioner, said after the settlement was announced that new policies would be put in place to prevent similar deaths. “No amount of money can bring back the life of a loved one,” Abdur-Rahman said. An attorney for Thompson’s family, Michael Harper, told Atlanta News First that the family would not be commenting on the settlement, but that “the Fulton County commission vote speaks for itself.” Thompson was found dead in the Fulton County Jail’s psychiatric wing on Sept. 19 “after being eaten alive by insects and bed bugs,” Harper said in April. He had been in custody for three months on a misdemeanor assault charge in conditions his family likened to a “torture chamber.”