There’s a reason why Georgia jails and prisons are continuously the subject of federal investigations and lawsuits. Those reasons include suspicious spikes in inmate deaths and violence - some of which have rather shocking origins.
Augusta State Medical Prison officer Daniel Farmer is one of 80 correctional officers within the GDC who faced criminal charges for inflicting violence on inmates, whether by their own hands or that of other inmates willing to do their dirty work, per a report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Last week, Daniel Farmer pleaded guilty to criminal charges of aggravated assault, unlawful acts of violence in a penal institution and violating his oath as an officer, court records show. Those charges are partly related to the civil case filed against him and the Georgia Department of Corrections alleging he played a major role in the stabbing of Terry Anthony, a former inmate, in 2022.
Wyatt, who was handing out dinner trays with the officer, refused to give Anthony his tray to which Anthony responded by throwing bodily fluids at him, the suit says. Anthony claims Farmer then had disappeared into the control room and moments later, the cell door popped. Wyatt then allegedly came charging in with a shank and stabbed him multiple times. Luckily, Anthony survived the attack.
While admitting he witnessed Wyatt enter and leave Anthony’s cell, Farmer denied having any knowledge that Wyatt was armed, per court records. He admitted he did not seek medical help for Anthony. He also claimed he didn’t know Wyatt’s violent history (the strangling murder his previous cellmate, whose eyeball he ate after gouging it from his lifeless body, per court records).
Inmate Accomplices?
In another case at the Wilcox State Prison, a video posted to social media by the Human and Civil Rights Coalition of Georgia shows a female correctional officer trying to move a male inmate onto a cart with the help of another male inmate, substantially bigger in size. When the inmate appears to not cooperate with the transfer, the larger inmate viciously punches him down.
Later, the corrections officer was identified as Melissa Lawson who was fired and arrested for “utilizing a 6'2, 260 pound inmate” to strike the inmate in the face, head and torso, the report says.
Read another case from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
During the day shift on May 25, Lloyd Hopkins was the only correctional officer assigned to Building E at Augusta State Medical Prison. He was working alone even though the staffing sheet has slots for a second officer in the unit as well as one in the control room, according to the shift assignment roster the AJC obtained through the Georgia Open Records Act.
At some point, arrest warrants allege, Hopkins allowed three prisoners Roderick Hayes, Brendon Moore and Andy Ulysse - into the building, where they entered Robert Robish’s cell with a “machete like weapon.” They were there to retrieve a contraband cellphone from Robish. But the plan backfired when Robish, defending himself, stabbed Hayes to death. Robish’s father, Joseph Robish, said when he heard from another prisoner what happened, he realized a staff member must have been involved.
Hopkins, 51, became a correctional officer four years ago after working the previous 12 years as a security guard. He remains in the Columbia County jail, where he is being held without bond on charges of aggravated assault, felony murder and violating his oath of office.
In response to the accusation their employees are basically using inmates to be assassins to other inmates, the GDC said those particular cases don’t reflect the “vast majority” of the CO’s who uphold their oaths to office, in a statement to the AJC.
Between 2021 and 2023, the news outlet found 98 Georgia prison deaths have been classified as homicides. The GDC also had record high of 35 inmate deaths in just the first quarter of this year.
With newly adjusted monthly reports withholding the inmates’ cause of death, there’s no telling how many more of these cases were secretly organized by correctional staff members.