Contract security officers leave jail in Atlanta after nonpayment of contract

ATLANTA — Some security officers at a jail in Atlanta that is under federal investigation walked off the job after the Fulton County sheriff’s office failed to pay money owed to the third-party contractor that employs them, the sheriff’s office said.

The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release that it is facing “a significant budget crisis” and owed an outstanding balance of more than $1 million to Strategic Security Corp. The company notified its employees Thursday afternoon that the contract had ended, that they would be clocked out at 2:15 p.m. and that they should not report to work at the jail going forward.

The sheriff’s office said that “created an immediate safety issue” at the county’s main jail and employees from all divisions were sent to staff the jail.

There were 17 contract officers working at the time, 13 at the main jail in Atlanta and four at the south annex in Union City, sheriff’s office spokesperson Natalie Ammons said. There are three shifts in a 24-hour period and there were a total of 74 contractors working on rotation to cover all of the shifts, she said.

Sheriff Pat Labat said that nearly 50 of the contract security officers came to the jail Thursday evening and were given conditional offers of employment and some were able to work immediately after completing paperwork.

The U.S. Department of Justice last year opened a civil rights investigation into jail conditions in the county, citing violence and filthy conditions. Federal authorities specifically mentioned the September 2022 death of Lashawn Thompson, one of more than a dozen people who has died in county custody over the last two years. Thompson, 35, died in a bedbug-infested cell in the jail’s psychiatric wing.

A state legislative committee formed last year to examine conditions at the jail concluded last week that more cooperation was needed between top county officials.

Labat has long acknowledged the problems and has called for a new $1.7 billion jail to replace the crumbling main jail on Rice Street. But county commissioners in July voted 4-3 instead for a $300 million project to renovate the existing jail and to build a new building to house inmates with special needs.