Prison Chief Condoned Brutality, Witnesses Say
By RICK BRAGG
ATLANTA -- Inmates in the Georgia prison system have long
complained of guards' brutality, and now a few guards, counselors
and other prison employees are supporting inmates' claims that on
one occasion, the state prison commissioner himself condoned,
watched and celebrated a mass beating.
The most recent account, a sworn statement by the lieutenant in
charge of a riot squad at Hays State Prison in northwestern
Georgia, alleges that a top aide to the prison commissioner
touched off a bloody attack on prisoners in July 1996 when he
grabbed an unresisting inmate by the hair and dragged him across
the floor.
That same day, Commissioner Wayne Garner watched in another
cellblock while inmates, some handcuffed and lying on the floor,
were punched, kicked and stomped until blood streaked the walls,
said Ray McWhorter, a riot squad lieutenant at the prison, in a
deposition filed Monday in federal district court.
Later, McWhorter said, Garner applauded the guards at a
celebratory chicken dinner.
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Last week, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a scathing
editorial that said Garner had gone "beyond the bounds of decency
and civilized behavior."