Southern Center for Human Rights files lawsuit against Georgia State Prison

ATLANTA — The Southern Center for Human Rights filed a civil rights lawsuit this week on behalf of two men claiming they were beaten, while handcuffed, by officers employed at Georgia State Prison in Reidsville.

The plaintiffs in the case are Shawn Andrews and Seth Rouzan. On Aug. 11, 2017, the suit said, they were subjected to beatings by members of the prison’s Correctional Emergency Response Team and other officers.

Specifically, Andrews and Rouzan allege in the suit that officers removed Andrews from a prayer service and handcuffed his hands behind his back. When Andrews asked why he was removed from the prayer service, the suit said, an officer slammed him to the ground head first, fracturing his skull, causing a life-threatening blood clot on his brain, and breaking bones in his face.

Andrews was airlifted to a hospital, where his skull was surgically opened to treat the blood clot, and a titanium plate was inserted to close the new hole in his skull, the suit said.

The suit goes on to say that Rouzan was in the medical unit of GSP for a psychiatric appointment when he was taken by an officer to a secluded area of the hallway, where officers held him down on the ground, handcuffed his hands behind his back, repeatedly kicked and punched him in the back and ribs, and kicked him in his right eye.

Rouzan suffered multiple injuries, including a fractured right eye socket, requiring surgery, multiple facial fractures, a concussion and other injuries, the suit said.

“An officer’s role is to keep incarcerated people safe. Brutally beating handcuffed prisoners does quite the opposite. This behavior has no place in a civilized society,” SCHR Senior Attorney Atteeyah Hollie said in a statement.

The two plaintiffs are seeking compensatory and punitive damages and seek to reveal a pattern and practice of excessive force by officers at the prison. The suit is brought against six current and former corrections employees.

Officials said this is the second excessive force case SCHR has brought against employees of the Georgia Department of Corrections in the past year. In August of 2017, SCHR filed a lawsuit on behalf of inmates at Augusta State Medical Prison, alleging that the Georgia DCOR’s guards used excessive force routinely.

The case was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia in Statesboro.