For the second time in two days, a fight broke out in a Georgia prison.
On Monday night, at least two inmates were injured during a brawl inside Hancock State Prison, authorities said. Officials did not detail the severity of the injuries or say if the inmates were taken to a hospital.
The fight involved only inmates at the facility, located about 100 miles southeast of downtown Atlanta, said Thomas Resha, chief investigator with the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office.
The Georgia Department of Corrections, which oversees the facility as well as Washington State Prison where a deadly fight occurred Sunday, did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday about the Hancock incident.
Resha told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution deputies were called to help with security around the outside of the Hancock prison. He said the Georgia State Patrol, Milledgeville police and the Washington County Sheriff’s Office assisted.
“We went at the request of the Hancock County sheriff to aid his office in securing the outside perimeter,” Washington Sheriff Joel Cochran told the AJC. “Smaller counties rely on each other to help when situations arise due to lack of manpower.”
Opened in 1991, Hancock State Prison houses men who have been convicted of serious crimes, according to the GDC website. The prison has a capacity to hold 1,200 people and is classified as a “close security” facility, which means inmates could pose an escape risk, have an assault history, be deemed dangerous “or have detainers for other serious crimes,” according to the GDC.
The facility is about 35 miles from the medium-security Washington State Prison. That’s where — a day earlier — three inmates were killed and 13 others were injured during what the GDC described as a gang-affiliated “disturbance” Sunday afternoon. A guard sustained non-life-threatening injuries, according to the department.
Ten injured inmates remained hospitalized Tuesday, a GDC spokesperson told the AJC.
Cochran’s office was also asked to help secure the outside of the Washington prison during that incident, the sheriff said.
An altercation among several inmates began at about 1:30 p.m., and prison staff regained control by 3 p.m. after using non-lethal weapons, the GDC said in a statement. The site remained on lockdown Tuesday, the department confirmed, and there is no timeline for lifting the lockdown.
The deceased inmates were identified as Teddy Jackson, Ahmod Hatcher and Jimmy Trammell, who was set to be released Wednesday.
GDC would not say how they died, only specifying that no firearms were used. The department said no one has been charged in the deadly fight as of Tuesday, but officials are still investigating.
Homicides inside Georgia’s prisons have been rising dramatically in recent years, according to an AJC investigation that used public death records, coroner’s reports and autopsy reports, along with death information from the GDC.
The GDC said it investigated 66 prison deaths in 2024 that were suspected homicides, which greatly exceeded 2023’s record of at least 38 killings.
In 2024, a report published by the U.S. Department of Justice described violence, sexual assaults and gang-run prisons in Georgia, fueled by a culture of indifference.
— Staff writer Rosana Hughes contributed to this article.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
