Former Georgia jail guard abused inmates with Taser and lied about it, authorities say

ATLANTA (AP) — A former Fulton County jail guard has been indicted on federal civil rights charges after prosecutors said she used her Taser abusively against three inmates and then lied to cover it up.

Khadijah Solomon, a 47-year-old Fairburn resident, pleaded not guilty to the six-count indictment in federal court in Atlanta on Tuesday and was released on bail. The troubled jail where Solomon worked has been under a federal civil rights investigation for the past two years and was also the site where Donald Trump surrendered on election interference charges in 2023.

A lawyer for Solomon didn’t immediately respond to an email and phone call seeking comment on Wednesday.

The June 11 indictment said Solomon used her Taser “without legal justification” against separate inmates at the Atlanta jail on Jan. 16, Jan. 25 and Jan. 27. The indictment alleges that Solomon then wrote reports falsely justifying what she did.

In reality, sheriff’s office investigators said body-worn camera video showed the pretrial detainees were compliant and not resisting.

In the Jan. 16 incident, sheriff’s office investigators said Solomon approached an inmate who was kicking his cell door and said she was about to “pop” him before opening the cell and using the Taser on the inmate. Investigators said Solomon then stunned the inmate twice more. She later claimed in her report that the inmate “was getting ready to throw” a tray at her.

The sheriff’s office in February announced that it had fired Solomon and two other jail officers — Chantrece Buggs and LaQuondria Pierce — arrested them, and charged them with state crimes including aggravated assault and violating their oath of office. Solomon, a jail sergeant, was also charged with cruelty to inmates and false statements or writings.

At the time, investigators said Pierce had used her Taser without justification on an inmate on Feb. 13 and that Buggs had encouraged Solomon’s violence. No federal charges against the other two were announced, and neither has yet been indicted in a state court. Pierce has the same lawyer as Solomon and he didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Natalie Ammons, a spokesperson for Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat, said the sheriff’s office had worked with the FBI in the Solomon case.

“On three occasions, Khadijah Solomon allegedly tased Fulton County Jail detainees without a legitimate purpose, causing each of them pain and injury,” U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg said in a statement. “Abuses of power of this kind are unconstitutional, erode our community’s trust, and will be prosecuted.”

The U.S. Justice Department in July 2023 opened a civil rights investigation into jail conditions in Fulton County, citing violence, filthy living quarters and the in-custody death of a man whose body was found covered in insects. That investigation found that jail officers didn’t receive adequate training and guidance on the use of force and were found to engage in “a pattern or practice of using excessive force” against people in county custody.

The Justice Department and Fulton County officials announced in January that they had entered into a court-enforceable consent decree. An independent monitor was appointed in February to oversee that agreement.