PRESS ADVISORY ACLU OF GEORGIA POLITICAL DIRECTOR TO SPEAK TONIGHT AT COBB COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS MEETING

Media contact: Ana Maria Rosato, [email protected]

Christopher Bruce, political director of the ACLU of Georgia, will speak at the Cobb County Board of Commissioners’ meeting tonight, Monday, December 16, 2019, at 6:00 pm. The meeting location is 100 Cherokee Street, Marietta, GA 30090, in the 2nd Floor Public Meeting Room.

“There is a dark cloud over Cobb County that needs to be lifted. The Cobb County Detention Center is in deplorable shape and an unacceptable place for people to stay. With seven deaths that we know of within the past 12 months and an apparent unconstitutional lockdown depriving people of their rights without a solution in sight, the ACLU of Georgia implores the Cobb County Commission to take action to right all of these wrongs and to do so immediately,” said Christopher Bruce, political director of the ACLU of Georgia. “To restore integrity in the Detention Center’s operations, we also ask that the Commission create a citizen’s review board to oversee the complaints and conditions as well as authorize independent financial and performance audits of the center.”

The ACLU of Georgia calls on the Cobb County Commissioners to pass a resolution to direct Sheriff Neil Warren to

• end the lockdown conditions at the jail immediately so individuals located in the jail can have visits from their family and loved ones during the holidays,
• answer all open records requests and produce procedures regarding mental health and medical care,
• explain the seven deaths that have occurred at the facility, and
• implement a plan to ensure that no one else dies at the Detention Center.

  ###