‘Absolute barbaric scene.’ Attorneys describe footage of Bibb County Jail inmate’s death
Civil rights attorneys representing the family of an inmate who died in the Bibb County Jail last year described the footage of his last moments as “barbaric.”
On what would have been Stephen Fossett’s 43rd birthday, attorneys Mawuli Davis and Nathan Fitzpatrick said Tuesday evening in front of The Douglass Theatre that Anita Howard, the district attorney for the Macon Judicial Circuit, invited the family to share with her the video of Fossett’s last moments.
Howard told the attorneys the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office did not inform her of Fossett’s death, and she only found out about it through the media.
Fossett died May 25, but Howard was not made aware of Fossett’s case until four or five months later, said Fitzpatrick.
Fossett had been booked into the jail on trespassing charges.
“There should be some level of accountability,” said Fitzpatrick. “And the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office didn’t allow any sort of investigative process to take place. They, in fact, held onto the evidence. They held onto everything that happened to Stephen until they didn’t have a choice but to give it to the public because of what we were doing and trying to bring light to his death.”
Sheriff David Davis and the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to the attorneys’ allegations by the time of publication.
The public, including the media, was not shown the video.
Chaotic scene before death
According to surveillance video from inside the jail, Fossett was in a dorm area, appearing confused or in medical distress, sitting in a shower area without the shower on. He was unattended to for some minutes before a deputy approached Fossett, but did not engage him. Deputies brought in a stretcher in which inmates assisted Fossett in lifting him and putting him onto the gurney and removed him from the general population, attorney Davis said.
Fossett’s mother, Paula Platt, shared in August of last year that he suffered from chronic schizophrenia.
“Our first concern is that he should not have been in the general population ... he should not have been in that jail,” said Davis. “In fact, it is our understanding there’s a relationship with the mental hospital here in Macon where he should have gone, once arrested, into a mental health facility to be stabilized versus just being thrown into the jail without any treatment.”
Fossett is then taken to the infirmary, where nurses attempt to administer Narcan, according to the incident report. He becomes agitated and he jumps and starts running, which leads to the deputies giving chase.
And then the officers pounce on him, said Davis. Many deputies are on top of him, putting their full body weight on Fossett while they tased him.
“They’re cussing him, calling him all kinds of names,” said Davis. “He is struggling to be able to even communicate anything at all. It’s just an absolute barbaric scene.”
After tasing Fossett, deputies put handcuffs on him and set him back onto the gurney and then they turn away from him. Davis said that it looked as if the staff worked on their computers “when it looks like he just expires.” Nurses never checked his pulse or his vitals, which he argues is the nurses’ duty.
Then people got off their computers and their conversation turned to performing life-saving maneuvers on Fossett, but it was too late.
“That’s one of the reasons that we believe this video has not been released to the public, and that is the sheriff’s decision,” Davis said.
He then expressed his gratitude to Howard and the district attorney’s office for sharing the video. Davis also added that Platt was unable to watch the video and they’re grateful that she did not watch it as “the treatment of her son was just so senseless and so violent against him.”
Here’s what happens next
Other than discussing how Howard was unaware of Fossett’s death until several months later, Fitzpatrick also mentioned that the video shown to them “didn’t appear to be everything that could have been produced.” There were clips of the footage, but Fitzpatrick said that the complete footage wasn’t provided.
“So now you have a district attorney who’s behind the eight ball trying to investigate this case four to five months after the fact,” said Fitzpatrick. “You got the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, whose obligation it is to investigate incidents that happen with government agencies, whether it be police misconduct or some misconduct at the jail or some incident in a prison. They weren’t given the opportunity to conduct an investigation because they weren’t notified in time.”
GBI ruled Fossett’s death was a homicide. and now is in charge of investigating what happened.
Fitzpatrick emphasized that he would continue to seek justice for Fossett’s family.
“What’s done in the dark will always come to light,” he said. “There is footage available, and we will look at the time stamps, we will look at the timeline and we will uncover everything that’s been available for us to recover, and we will get Stephen justice.”
This story was originally published January 29, 2025 at 2:10 PM.
