The Georgia sun scorched the slab of concrete beneath Juan Carlos Ramirez Bibiano’s body when nurses found him in a puddle of his own excrement, vomiting, according to a complaint.

Officers left Ramirez in an outdoor cell at Telfair State Prison on July 20, 2023, for five hours without water, shade or ice, even as the outside temperature climbed to 96 degrees by the afternoon, according to a lawsuit brought by his family. That evening, the complaint says, Ramirez died of heart and lung failure caused by heat exposure. He was 27.

Ramirez’s family, including his mother, Norma Bibiano, announced a lawsuit against the Georgia Department of Corrections on Thursday, alleging that officers’ negligent performance of their duties caused his death. The warden directed officers to check on inmates, bring them water and ice and limit their time outside, the complaint says.

The Department of Corrections reported that Ramirez died of natural causes, Jeff Filipovits, one of Norma Bibiano’s attorneys, said at a news conference in Decatur, a suburb of Atlanta.

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Georgia kills lots of poor people in prison. Heat, bedbugs, getting stabbed. Many don’t even have formal charges filed or a bond set.

    It’s a red state, so nothing’s going to be done about it, except maybe move some toadies around.

    • sparkle@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      I live in Georgia, can confirm. Don’t go anywhere near the rural parts of this hellhole, especially if you’re black or have some sort of other trait which southerners & conservatives discriminate against. Don’t even think about taking weed with you in a car outside of Atlanta or Savannah. If you get arrested here, you’re not going to be able to leave any time soon. And there’s no laws which require compensating the wrongfully incarcerated or convicted.

      If Georgia were a county, it would have the 4th highest incarceration rate in the world. Higher than El Salvador and Rwanda. The only ones that beat it are other US states (Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma).

      I would also avoid Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and West Virginia. Not only because you might be wrongfully thrown in jail or prison, or get shot or something, but because those are just terrible places to exist in to begin with. At least Georgia has a decent amount of blue in it. Although our whitest counties bestowed upon the world Marjorie Taylor Greene and the guy who voted against making lynching a federal hate crime, so maybe it balances out. (this guy’s political career has been CARTOONISHLY evil by the way, it’s wild reading the Wikipedia article about him, I mean every red politician from Georgia is but it’s still shocking actually reading what these people do)