A 19-year-old woman who mysteriously died while in custody at the Atlanta City Detention Center has left a family devastated and an attorney demanding answers.
“There was simply no reason for the family to be sitting here struggling with these type of questions and struggling to understand this situation,” Attorney Sho Watson explained to 11Alive.
According to the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, Noni Battiste-Kosoko was detained on a misdemeanor charge at the detention center since May.
The teenager was from Miami and moved to Atlanta for a “change of scenery,” the family’s lawyer said.
According to Watson, Battiste-Kosoko had a mental health issue but it is unclear how she died. He did not disclose further details.
“She did suffer from mental health disease that kind of manifests itself,” he said. “We know absolutely nothing. About the context, the facts, the circumstances of Noni’s passing.”
The victim’s mother found out about her daughter’s detainment after not hearing from her for several days.
She began calling hospitals, then called jails. It was a month later when Battiste-Kosoko was pronounced dead. Up until today, her family is still unsure how their loved one died.
“We’re looking for answers and we’re determined to find them and where folks need to be held accountable,” Watson said. We’re determined.”
The sheriff’s office says the results of Battiste-Kosoko’s autopsy is not yet ready. Meanwhile, her family has been left in the dark about her death, but has learned other inmates have died under Fulton County Sheriff’s Office’s custody, including the death of Lashawn Thompson.
According to statistical tables provided by the Department of Justice, “a total of 4,234 persons died in state and federal prisons in 2019, a 6.6% decrease from the 4,515 deaths in 2018 reported to the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ (BJS) Mortality in Correctional Institutions (MCI, formerly the Deaths in Custody Reporting Program) data collection. In 2019, the mortality rate in state prisons was 330 per 100,000 state prisoners, while federal prisoners in facilities operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) died at a rate of 259 per 100,000.”
