METRO REENTRY FACILITY

Last updated August 23, 2026.(DS)

Metro Reentry Facility occupies the renovated former Metro State Prison in Atlanta, reopened in 2018 under the state's prisoner-reentry initiative. It houses roughly 300–350 men within a defined window of release or parole eligibility, at 95.8% of its 355-bed rated capacity as of the most recent GPS snapshot. The facility's stated mission is intensive programming — cognitive-behavioral classes, job-readiness and vocational training, education and life-skills courses, and family-reunification support — aimed at reducing recidivism by preparing participants for supervised return to the community. But GPS's mortality records and the accounts GPS has collected from people held there tell a different story: a reentry facility where men are dying at a rate that demands scrutiny, and where basic conditions — heat, water, food — have become recurring sources of complaint.

A Death That Began at Washington State Prison

Silas Westbrook, 42, was transferred to Metro Reentry Facility in DeKalb County after being hospitalized with minor injuries from the January 11, 2026 gang-war riot at Washington State Prison — a disturbance that killed three men at the scene and triggered a continuous lockdown that has kept that facility closed for more than five months. Westbrook was the fourth man to die from injuries sustained in that riot. According to GDC's public statements, Westbrook suffered a medical emergency upon arrival at Metro Reentry and was pronounced deceased on January 17, 2026. His body was turned over to the county coroner and taken to the GBI Crime Lab to determine the official cause of death. The GDC Office of Professional Standards opened an investigation into his death — the fourth inmate death it was investigating in connection with the Washington State Prison disturbance.

The timeline is stark. Dajhmere Hall, 30, was found dead at Washington State Prison on January 9, two days before the riot. Teddy Jackson, 27; Ahmod Hatcher, 23; and Jimmy Trammell, 42 — days from release — were killed in the riot itself on January 11. Westbrook died six days later, after being released from the hospital and transferred to Metro Reentry. GPS's mortality database records all five deaths as part of a single week, January 9–17, 2026. Twelve incarcerated men were subsequently charged with felony murder, aggravated assault, and gang participation in connection with the disturbance, announced in late April 2026.

Thirty-Two Deaths at a Reentry Facility

GPS has tracked 32 deaths at Metro Reentry Facility since 2020. Twenty are classified as natural or medical; eleven remain unknown or pending; one is classified as an accident. The recent record is dominated by men in their 50s and 60s: Cedric Clement Pierce, 61, died April 13, 2026; Samuel Dennis Hunt, 64, died March 1, 2026; Donald Woods, 65, died January 31, 2026; Wilson Beavers, 66, died October 10, 2025; John Whitfield, 61, died October 5, 2025. Robert Rodriguez Johnson, 46, died January 1, 2026, of natural or medical causes. Rodney Corbin, 55, and Stephen Mott, 52, died within three days of each other in late October 2025.

The pattern is consistent with a facility housing an aging population within a defined window of release or parole eligibility — men who are, by definition, closer to the end of their sentences and, in many cases, closer to the end of their lives. But the volume of deaths at a facility whose stated purpose is preparing men for supervised return to the community raises questions about whether the medical infrastructure at Metro Reentry is adequate to the population it actually holds. GPS's mortality records are a floor, not a ceiling: GDC reports deaths roughly two months late, and the eleven deaths still classified as unknown or pending may yet be reclassified.

Heat, Water, and Food: Conditions Inside

GPS has received recurring reports from incarcerated people at Metro Reentry Facility describing conditions that are difficult to reconcile with a facility dedicated to reentry and rehabilitation. Multiple witnesses report that the facility has no air conditioning, and that ice is not being provided as expected to help alleviate the heat — while some incarcerated people are permitted to obtain ice and then hoard and sell it to others. Multiple witnesses report that the drinking water is hot and tastes strongly of chlorine, and that drinking it is causing cramps and diarrhea. Multiple witnesses report that the food is of very poor quality, described as unappetizing and causing nausea. GPS has also received reports that certain individuals at the facility sell contraband to other incarcerated people.

These accounts sit inside a systemic pattern GPS has documented across GDC facilities. GPS's reporting has established that GDC spends approximately $1.69 per person per day on food — under 60 cents per meal — versus the FDA Thrifty Food Plan estimate of roughly $10 per day for an adult man's nutritionally adequate diet. The Marshall Project independently corroborated the pattern in May 2026, reporting rats in kitchens, insects in food, moldy trays, and visible malnutrition across Georgia facilities. GPS has also documented a systemic pattern of food-service sanitation failure across GDC kitchens — tray-sanitizing dishwashers broken for sustained periods, sustained roach and rodent infestation, meals served on visibly contaminated trays — that DPH inspection scores systematically fail to capture. The contradiction between high DPH scores and sustained witness reports of equipment failure and food contamination is the analytical center of GPS's investigation "Dunked, Stacked, and Served."

The Structural Context: Staffing Collapse and Classification Drift

Metro Reentry Facility operates inside a system where officer vacancies have run between 49.3% and 60% systemwide for multiple years, against a national standard of no more than 10%. The October 2024 DOJ findings letter explicitly concluded that "the leadership of the Georgia Department of Corrections has lost control of its facilities" and faulted GDC for placing "too much blame on gangs and insufficient emphasis on understaffing." Russell Zirkle, a former GDC assistant warden, has stated on the record — in a timestamped interview documented by GPS in "Two Commanders Say Georgia Hides Its Prison Staffing Crisis" — that Macon State Prison was among facilities running a 70–80% officer vacancy rate. Approximately 31% of the system's ~49,000 incarcerated population are validated members of 315 different security threat groups — more than double the national average.

The classification-drift finding is directly relevant to a facility like Metro Reentry. GPS has documented that medium-security prisons across Georgia are now functioning as close-security facilities without adequate staffing and infrastructure — a pattern GPS published in its report "The Classification Crisis: How Four Medium Security Prisons Are Killing People." When a reentry facility receives men transferred from a maximum-security compound like Washington State Prison in the aftermath of a gang-war riot, the classification question is not abstract. Westbrook arrived at Metro Reentry after hospitalization for injuries sustained in that riot. Whether the facility was staffed and equipped to manage the medical and security needs of a man in that condition is a question the GDC Office of Professional Standards investigation may answer — or may not.

What the Record Does Not Yet Show

GPS has recorded no deaths at Metro Reentry Facility attributed to homicide. The eleven deaths still classified as unknown or pending include Silas Westbrook, whose official cause of death remained with the GBI Crime Lab as of the most recent GPS records. GPS has received no aggregate signals meeting the minimum threshold for publication at this facility — no pattern of family safety concerns, staff retaliation reports, or external complaints filed to oversight bodies that crossed the three-source threshold. That absence is itself a finding: at a facility where 32 men have died since 2020, the intelligence record is thinner than the mortality record.

The facility's leadership roster — Warden Gregory L. Sampson, Deputy Warden of Security Robert Owens, Deputy Warden of Care and Treatment Latrese Schofield, Deputy Warden of Administration Adrienne Bunkley, Superintendent Cynthia Jackson-Parham, Assistant Superintendent Desmond Cofield, and Chief of Security Hattie Fambro — is a matter of public record. GPS has received no specific reports implicating any of these individuals in misconduct. The conditions reports GPS has collected — heat, water, food — are systemic in nature, consistent with the infrastructure and staffing collapse GPS has documented across GDC facilities, and not attributable to any single individual.

Sources

This analysis draws on GDC public statements regarding the death of Silas Westbrook and the Washington State Prison disturbance; GPS's mortality database and facility records; GPS's own investigative reporting on food, staffing, classification drift, and infrastructure collapse across GDC facilities, including "Dunked, Stacked, and Served," "The Classification Crisis," and "Two Commanders Say Georgia Hides Its Prison Staffing Crisis"; The Marshall Project's independent May 2026 investigation of Georgia prison food; the October 2024 DOJ findings letter; and inmate accounts collected by GPS staff at Metro Reentry Facility.