Christon Collins’ Family Demands Truth and Accountability — Fight Back!

Atlanta, GA – The family of Christon Collins, a 27-year veteran who died at the Dekalb County Jail, held a press conference Monday morning, July 22, to share new information about their son’s death.

Collins’ mother, Jonia Milburn, says she has received conflicting information from the sheriff’s office. The family is calling for an independent investigation and for those responsible to be held accountable.

Emotions filled the room as Jonia Milburn spoke about what she saw in the video of her son’s final moments in prison. “My son was lying on the floor for three hours unattended. No one noticed. Not the guards, not the supervisors, not anyone but the inmates.” Milburn said the video shows her son losing his balance and hitting his head, then lying on the floor for three hours in the prison’s common area with no one watching him but the inmates. Documents shared by the family show that when Collins was finally taken to hospital several hours later, paramedics did not perform life-saving measures on him.

Christon Collins was a veteran suffering from PTSD and severe mental health issues. He was sent to the Dekalb County Jail after having an episode and was placed on the maximum security floor. “He needed to go to the hospital, not to jail,” his mother said. Collins’ family had been trying to get him sent to the VA hospital instead of jail for months before his death. The VA agreed, but the sheriff’s office refused to transport him until he died in jail. Collins had not been convicted.

Collins’ family has expressed frustration with the sheriff’s office’s lack of transparency. Milburn said the coroner’s office preserved her son’s brain and spleen without her knowledge, something she only discovered during an independent autopsy later. The independent autopsy also found no drugs in Christon’s system, contradicting the toxicology report from the Dekalb County coroner’s office. The family said the jail gave them documents for the wrong inmate, which only added to their confusion and frustration. Milburn said she wants change “for all the other Christons out there suffering.”

Last year, more than 30 people died in Fulton and Dekalb County jails due to neglect and deadly conditions. Inmates can be heard screaming for help through the broken windows of the Dekalb County jail. Current and former inmates speak of overcrowding, no running water, medical neglect, and unsanitary conditions. These inhumane conditions occur in a county jail where most of the inmates have not been convicted of a crime. Working-class Black residents of Dekalb County are the most impacted by this deadly jail. While Black residents make up about 50% of Dekalb County, Black inmates make up over 80% of the inmate population. Nearly all of the inmates who have died in the Dekalb County jail since 2022 have been Black. This is a symptom of the over-policing of Black communities and racist mass incarceration.

The Dekalb County NAACP, Atlanta Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and New Order Human Rights Organization attended the press conference and vowed to continue fighting for transparency and accountability in the sheriff’s office.

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