Fulton County sees fourth inmate death of 2024

September 10th, 2024

During a security round on Monday night at the Atlanta City Detention Center, an officer found 43-year-old inmate Michael Brandon Rivers unresponsive in his cell. (Pixabay)

Updated on 09/11/24 at 2:26 p.m.

The death of a Fulton County inmate this week marks the fourth of its kind this year, according to authorities.

During a security round on Monday night at the Atlanta City Detention Center, an officer found 43-year-old inmate Michael Brandon Rivers unresponsive in his cell.

Rivers had been arrested by the Atlanta Police Department in early June on a failure to appear warrant and was being held without bond.

The Atlanta Police Department will conduct a death investigation and Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office will conduct an autopsy on Rivers, according to the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office.

Rivers’ death is the latest of several at Fulton County correctional facilities this year.

On April 10, Louisiana resident Travis Landrey was found by authorities unresponsive at the Fulton County Jail. The preliminary cause of death was labeled as suicide by the county’s medical examiner’s office.

According to online records, Landrey had been in custody since 2022 for the carjacking and murder of 57-year-old Buckhead resident Christopher Eberhart.

Earlier that month, 37-year-old Leonard Fortner, who had been held in the same facility for over four months without bond, was stabbed to death by fellow inmate Edward Cherry. The suspect used scrap metal from around the jail to create the knife used to kill Fortner.

On Jan. 10, 36-year-old Michael Anthony Holland was found dead in his jail cell during a routine security round.

Before his death, Holland had been in custody since May 2023 on charges of aggravated assault against a law enforcement officer and willful obstruction of law enforcement officers by the use of threats or violence.

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article listed inmate Travis Landrey’s cause of death as suicide by the sheriff’s office. This has been corrected as stating that the preliminary cause of death has been labeled as suicide by the county’s medical examiner’s office.