This story was updated at 2:52 p.m.
The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into jail conditions in Georgia’s most populous county, with officials citing violence, filthy conditions and excessive force by jail officers.
Investigators will look at living conditions, access to medical and mental health care, use of excessive force by staff and conditions that may give rise to violence between people held in Fulton County’s jails, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said during a news conference Thursday. The county’s main jail is in Atlanta and has a long history of problems.
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