COLUMBIA, S.C. — Two South Carolina jails where incarcerated people have died violently at the hands of employees or others held behind bars are under federal investigation, the U.S. Justice Department announced Thursday.
Officials said the civil rights probes will examine the conditions at detention centers in the southern state's urban hubs of Charleston and Columbia. They cited the deaths of a mentally ill Black man stunned 10 times by two jail employees who kneeled on his back until he stopped breathing and another man beaten to death by five attackers locked in cells with unsecured doors.
"People confined in local jails across our country do not abandon their civil and constitutional rights at the jailhouse door," Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke told reporters Thursday. "Incarceration should never carry with it the risk of death or serious harm."
