Fulton County Board Of Commissioners DESTROYS The DA's Office Over Jail Issues!

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Guys, we have to talk about what's going on with the Fulton County Jail and specifically what the board of commissioners said during their last meeting about the Fulton County Jail. It seems that the board of commissioners is fed up with what's happening in Fulton County Jail. Although, we haven't really seen any movement from the sheriff's department. We haven't seen any conversation with the DA's office. And now they're going to speak on what's actually happening and what happened with Rob Rob Pit's five-point plan to help improve the jail. Here we go.

[00:00:30]>> 0297 Regional 3 Emergency Medical Services Council Chairman Pittz has nominated Steven Moyes for a full board reappointment to a term ending June 30th, 2028.

[00:00:40]>> All right. Motion to approve by Vice Chair Opted by Commissioner Thorne >> and the vote is open and the motion passes. Six yays, zero nays. On page nine, >> here we go. Commissioners presentation and discussion items 260299 discussion utilization of funds committed for improving jail detention staffing and the detention staffing hiring process sponsored by Commissioner Ellis.

[00:01:10]>> Commissioner Ellis shout out to Bob.

[00:01:12]>> Yeah. Could we also just I think just tie this in with item coming off the consent agenda, the justice system update since they're related.

[00:01:24]>> Okay. Back on page four.

[00:01:29]Bottom of page 4, 260279, May 2026, justice system update.

[00:01:36]>> Yeah, thank you. And I'm certainly not looking for you to go through this presentation. I just just really just had um I wanted for this particular component, the utilization of some sort of um graphical representation of that to be sort of in the continual just system updates. And so, Mr. Herman, I know you provided some detail at the last meeting. Um, and I just asked to confirm this again. Um, and I just want to reiterate again the importance of this and I said this before, you know, what what gets measured gets focused.

[00:02:08]Um, and the stuff the lack of this happening is costing us material amounts of money and also creating material amounts of risk. I think at the last meeting one of the things that I'm not sure came out in the floor session or not but um one of the things that was shared of us related to facilities themselves was that we have this fixing of doors that goes on which doesn't have anything to do with the age of the facility.

[00:02:37]These are doors that get repaired and um Mr. County manager I think this information was shared back for us from Mr. Davis, I believe, who's not here, but that information was shared was that 35 of the 80 doors that they had repaired within 3 weeks were damaged again. Um, and that sort of speaks to things not being supervised and monitored. And if you run that out, we're on pace to spend $3 million, $3 million, again, $3 million on door repairs due to vandalism. and we know kind of like all of the stuff that's come before this that we've had to >> turn down or find out find unique ways of things to do. um whether it's you know youth job programs or whether they're senior related things but you know things that we would like to do in put priority but we're not able to do them because we're having to incur sunk costs like this that could be avoided >> if we have proper supervision which ties to this initiative of getting this 200 net new people in there and so I do want to kind of continue to keep this front and center at the last meeting again sort of the target on this with this additional, you know, just under $20 million footprint that was set aside for this um was to get to a net new 200. And at the last meeting, we had we had a net new of 27.

[00:04:04]Um and where are we at today in terms of the net new hires?

[00:04:08]>> 30.

[00:04:10]>> Good afternoon, uh commissioners. Kenet Herman, chief HR officer. Uh as of today, uh the number has dropped slightly. The we're projecting net new of 25. We had some additional separations.

[00:04:21]>> Okay. So, we're closing in on five months and we're at 25.

[00:04:26]>> Five months they've had $20 million set aside to figure this out and we are still at a point to where we've only hired 25 people. They're trying to get 200 and people are I ain't going in there. Pat Labont, Fton County, Rice Street. No. No thank you. What has happened? There's signon bonuses.

[00:04:48]there's incentives. Nobody wants to go there. Why?

[00:04:52]>> Um on a target of 200. So just want us to kind of keep that keep that in focus and keep this in these reports so that we can kind of continue to >> it's infuriating >> understand what's going on with that and the impact that has by not meeting it on our overall um system and implications for the entire county. Thanks.

[00:05:11]>> Geez.

[00:05:12]>> All right. I'm sorry, Commissioner Thorne.

[00:05:15]Um, do we do we know why like how long it takes if a candidate is interviewed by the sheriff the whole >> they don't want to work there commission candidates presented and then how long is it taking for them to go through the process?

[00:05:33]>> Uh, commissioner I I don't have that information but I can go back and look at the 11 folks that have been hired.

[00:05:38]Sorry, of the 19 of the 44 individuals that have been hired. I can see when they started the process to when they actually became on board and provide you that information on average that it's uh 60 days or 90 days. I know in a conversation with the sheriff's office, I think they were trying to uh be no more than 30 days outside of the county's normal 60-day hiring process, but we acknowledge that their process is protracted because they do have to do a number of different validation steps than that we have to do for a normal hiring of a a clerk, for example.

[00:06:08]>> Okay. Thank you.

[00:06:11]Okay. Anything else, Madam Clerk?

[00:06:16]>> 260301.

[00:06:18]Discussion, update, implementation of the five-point plan sponsored by Chairman Pittz.

[00:06:23]>> Yeah, let's talk about the five-point plan. Rob.

[00:06:25]>> Yes, sir.

[00:06:27]>> Hey, good afternoon. Benjamin McCarti from the strategy office. Um, I think we have a PowerPoint if we can wait for that to be pulled up.

[00:06:49]All right. Thank you. Um, as I said, my name is Benjamin McCarti. I'm here from the strategy office. Um, I recently started with the county. Excited.

[00:06:56]>> Can you speak up a little bit, please?

[00:06:57]>> Excited to be here and be doing this work. Um, and so I we wanted to we're of course going to provide an update on the five points. Um but wanted to start with this slide to give us a little bit of u additional language to show that we are um continuing to think through what a broader and more structured jail reduction plan could look like because of course we're going to need to continue doing jail reduction work um probably um in the future. Um so one of the things that I wanted to note here and you'll probably probably be seeing this in future updates is this um focus areas on the bottom left of the slide.

[00:07:31]So we have the pre-arrest, pre-booking, and postbooking. So pre-arrest would be things like the diversion center and the work that PAD is doing. And then we have pre-booking, which would be um one of the five points, which is the diversion hub. And then we also have um strategies that would be focused on postbooking.

[00:07:48]And I bring this up just to show that there are we can do things to reduce the jail population that is currently in jail, but also the inflow um as well. So that just helps us think about additional measures that we can do to help reduce the number of people that are coming into the jail. I also wanted to uh point out here although it is not one of the five points, we have the data working group. This group is u almost all of the justice partners who have met um I believe three times now and we're meeting every Thursday and we are going through the um justice data to identify an inventory of data points key data points that we can use to effectively measure our progress toward jail reduction initiatives. Okay.

[00:08:30]There's a need to have the partners align on the justice data so that there are standardized definitions uh so that we can use them effectively when we're communicating with one another so that we're pulling the same numbers. Um and so in the future you can expect that we will hopefully be able to show you a prototype of what a new dashboard could look like which would have some of those aligned data points uh focused on our job reduction initiatives. And we can go to the next slide.

[00:08:56]All right. So moving to our five points, we've got um one slide here for each of the the five points. So the first one being incre uh reducing our pre-trial population through increased utilization of our ankle monitors. We know that we have capacity um to to uh place people additional folks on uh ankle monitors.

[00:09:15]And so we've had some conversations with the district attorney and public defenders offices and we've reached out to provide support. We've had conversations primarily be leading that effort. Um after those conversations, we have um we believe that a a reasonable or realistic number of placements that we could achieve on a monthly basis would be a net of 20 to 25. And so if we are able to do that through the end of the year, we think that we could reach a point where we have a net um uh increase of an up to 150 additional monitors. And so we'll continue to support that work.

[00:09:51]As I say, we've reached out to u provide support to those offices. And so we'll continue to do that. So next slide, please.

[00:09:57]>> Wait a minute before you leave this.

[00:10:03]>> All right. Rob, >> so when we originally talked about this, there were some five or 600 that were eligible to be put on ankle monitors immediately. The district attorney sent a memo or email, which I saw a copy of, but what's happened with that? Yeah, I believe they did have some initial meetings where the district attorney and the public defender did meet and they identified about 200 people and that that those people were shared with the public defender and they met and they did review them. I I believe that they were able to um coordinate release through angle monitors of about 15 people. Um and I You guys hear this? 500 500 allegedly eligible according to the district attorney's office.

[00:11:06]15 were released. Rob Pitt said 500 were allegedly eligible to be released immediately. Not next week, not in August, not 2027, immediately. And they've released 15 people.

[00:11:28]Don't go to jail here.

[00:11:29]>> Know that they're continuing to have conversations to establish a mechanism by which they can coordinate review of those people. I will say that as we we may pull 200 people, but as we go through that list, it may not always be that simple because there's going to be other reasons why if someone's eligible or appropriate for an ankle monitor release, uh it may not be realistic to do so because they have other reasons to be held um in jail. And so that may be that they're not able to post their bond. So a judge would have to reconsider or lower that bond or they may have to be um seek some other assistance to be able to pay that bond.

[00:12:01]So, >> okay, I mean I mean no disrespect here, but um >> this is a simple matter that will help us to immediately decrease the jail population.

[00:12:11]>> And I was encouraged when I saw the original the initial memo that was uh sent by the district attorney, but I was started this what two two months ago, three months ago.

[00:12:24]>> It's not a priority, Rob.

[00:12:25]>> And this will be end of July or not.

[00:12:27]It's I'm going to do like Commissioner uh Ellis here. I'm going to have this on the on our agenda at every meeting and I'd like actual numbers. I appreciate the, you know, the the words on your uh PowerPoint here, but I mean, we have a problem that we're just all trying to reduce the jail population and we can do this quickly.

[00:12:48]Now, I don't want to talk about why why I'm hearing there is a problem. It's not a priority problem, >> but reluctance to um to do so, but this will be back on the agenda. If you want to go through, you want to be heard. Yeah. Go ahead.

[00:13:02]>> Well, could I also say we we would benefit from some encouragement from this group >> to the two principles that are responsible for this, the DA and the public defender being here to explain >> what's the disconnect between the memo and the practice?

[00:13:17]>> Yes. Are we just saying that? Okay.

[00:13:20]Well, this person might be in jail for felony murder, but and they might have be in jail for possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, but they're eligible for an ankle monitor, but they're really not going to get out on an ankle monitor because half of those 500 people, their bond is $100,000.

[00:13:41]Okay, fine. Then why then why even bring them up in the first place?

[00:13:48]And I >> Yeah, I thought we had asked for that before, but >> Well, we did and and we were turned down. So, we need some encouragement from this group to make that happen.

[00:13:59]All right, Commissioner Bar application, the people that that qualify for this because um you know, Commissioner Thornne and I were on the same uh sheriff's update this week and um the numbers that they went through, I believe there were some number over 500 of um uh probation violations or parole violations in in currently at Rice Street and uh like another hundred that were um failure to appear and those just, you know, not being a lawyer, you know, or a DA or any of those things where ankle monitors could be applied.

[00:14:28]They were clearly out um and are only back in because they didn't show up for a court date. I know we have the text um strategy that we're working on, but it does seem like those would be a really good fit for ankle monitors again without going case by case and really understanding that. But is there a reason why that is not correlating nearly as well as it seems like it should?

[00:14:45]>> Yeah, I'm not entirely sure to be honest and I don't want to speculate on conver the the the different policies or reasons why those folks may not have been selected in that initial list of 200 or additional conversations. I'm just not.

[00:14:57]>> Boy, if I were on this commission board, I'd be like, great. Bring me the list of names. I want all 500 from Tyrone to Josh. And we're going to sit here with the district attorney's office and go through every single one of these 500 names since y'all can't find time to do it prioritize. And I want you to tell me why this person isn't released. Jacob Fry. Why is he still in?

[00:15:21]Oh, okay. Well, you know, it's shoplifting. His bond's $50. Okay. Can we release him? release him. It cannot be this complicated, guys. It can't. And he's saying, "Oh, I don't I don't know.

[00:15:32]I have no idea."

[00:15:33]>> Not privy to those conversations or to that at this point. But, as I say, we have reached out and I think we will continue trying to support and and trying to get to the bottom of of why we can't move a little faster on this.

[00:15:44]>> It's because you don't >> do you know anything further on that, Mr. County Manager?

[00:15:47]>> No, I was going to ask Benjamin. Is that part of the jail population review exercise that Judge Mc Bernie talked about yesterday? or not.

[00:15:56]>> Yes. So there is so the jail population review committee meets every two weeks and they've been doing so I think for many months now and so they have a list of folks that is referred to them um and so they work with Georgia justice project PAD um and superior court they have partners there as well. So they come together and they go line by line and a list of people and say you know can this person be is this person you know a candidate a good candidate for um to to um have some sort of expedited release process.

[00:16:22]>> Okay. So exactly what Thank you. That's exactly what I would do. And you know what? It's not a priority. So that's why we're here. They don't freaking >> So ankle monitors may be part of that, but that with the DA not being there and part of the jail population review committee, I don't I don't know how to what level they would be able to ankle monitors directly.

[00:16:40]>> They don't care. Insane. But this conversation is a great example why getting to a single set of numbers that everybody agrees to that you've talked about, you know, much previous to today is so critical because you get a memo about 200, you went to a meeting about 500. The committee may or may not have looked at either and everybody's it's the tyranny of the anecdote. Somebody comes up with something and says it and then we run that direction. Then we run back another direction. Meanwhile, Mr. Chairman, we're not really making substantive progress. No. So those what Benjamin was talking about up front I am encouraged by even though it seems amorphous but getting a data group that repres is representative of all different entities and getting everybody to agree is fundamentally a step one and then getting the principles to assume ownership and then lastly to help at least report out to this group on you know monthly or whatever time frame you think most helpful.

[00:17:36]>> Yes. Uh, you know what? I'm I am going to We're going to start a rock. We want to start the rock. This is the release.

[00:17:45]The I don't know what we're going to call it. We'll call it something. The release.

[00:17:50]I don't know. But we have to fix this to where we have somebody overseeing what is going on with release. So, we have the re the release oversight committee.

[00:18:00]We'll call it rock. Maybe that'll be Rock. And we just have someone who's committed to figuring this out, guys, because I I I'm sorry. Cannot hide my frustration on this, but this is affecting so many people. And I think it's just it's sad for us to sit by and shrug our solars and say, "Oh, yeah, we're going to put it on the agenda for every meeting now. Is that what kind of threat is that, Rob Pittz? They don't care. It's not a priority. these 500 people that could potentially be released. I don't know what their charges are or how that's handled, but it's not being prioritized because only 15 have even been looked at from what we understand.

[00:18:36]>> Year.

[00:18:39]>> Thank you, Chairman. Um >> I would I would formally ask that a letter comes from this body requesting >> their >> because at the end of the day um Mr. Marti can't answer that question. and the county manager can't answer. And it does a disservice, chairman, for us to sit up and have these um >> presentations and then questions, legitimate questions like the one Commissioner Barrett asked and we don't have anybody here that can answer it.

[00:19:10]And so if we're really seriously talking about working together to make sure that this five-point plan, I think uh a letter needs to go out uh respectfully.

[00:19:22]Uh, I don't imagine it would go out any other way, but I I just let me just say what's on my mind and I'm g say it again and I'm gonna keep saying it over and over again before I got here six years ago. Commissioners asking you to come and speak before the board is not a bad thing. It is an opportunity for you to say yay or nay. This is the reason for, this is the reason against.

[00:19:46]I do not run your department. So, I need some input from your department and this uh Fton County as a whole, we have to get out of uh this thing of oh, they asked me to come down. I remember when we had a I had a another situation where I asked for a person to come down just for clarification and they talked to everybody but me and they never came here because they automatically got in their feelings by it was something bad.

[00:20:11]chairman and I just want to talk about the elephant in the room as commissioners and as being the menty of commissioner Darnell, she would call anybody down here at as at a moment's notice to just answer a question. And so for us to be uh a governmental entity that wants to work together collectively for the best of Fton County, we need you to come and answer these questions. So I'm humbly asking chairman that the letter be sent and it be sent to say hey this question was asked and it's other things that we need to ask you in reference to this and would you please come before the board in the discussion.

[00:20:52]Thank you.

[00:20:53]>> Yeah. Shout out to I again there's so much that goes on so much more that said during this meeting but I just I can't take it anymore guys. It's sad, frustrating to see people, they want to present a PowerPoint and say they don't understand why these folks are still sitting in jail. I mean, can you imagine watching this in your in Fton County right now and they're just like, "Yeah, I don't know why I got doom. Maybe they missed. I don't know. They violated their parole." We got 15, though.

[00:21:20]Oof.