Carter, Sidney

Tenure Summary

No lawsuits naming Carter as a defendant appear in available court records; however, the deaths and events documented under his watch paint a picture of a facility grappling with lethal violence and systemic corruption.

What happened on their watch

Under Warden Carter’s leadership, GPS records associate six deaths with Coffee Correctional Facility. None of the decedents’ records list a natural‑cause determination; all are classified under cause category 6, a designation used by GPS for deaths that are not attributable to illness or age‑related decline. The deaths, listed chronologically:

• Jeffery B. Russell, age 60, died on January 8, 2024, just one week into Carter’s tenure.
• Robert Adams, 52, died on February 8, 2024.
• William Eric Green, 61, died on May 24, 2024.
• David Lynn Waldrop, 70, died on November 25, 2025.
• Richard Romeo Shelby, 60, died on December 28, 2025.
• Paul Travis Williams, 57, died on March 23, 2026.

The deaths bracketed a mass‑violence episode. On December 13, 2025, a series of stabbings inside the facility left multiple inmates critically injured and required off‑site life‑saving medical care. News reports, including those by FOX 5 Atlanta and the Atlanta Journal‑Constitution, subsequently alleged that all 16 inmates later indicted for the attacks were members of the Bloods street gang. A Georgia grand jury indicted those 16 individuals in June 2026 — after evidence was presented on June 18 — on charges of aggravated assault, aggravated battery, violations of the Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act, and riot in a penal institution.

Separately, the Atlanta Journal‑Constitution reported that Dacia Gaskins, a former correctional officer at Coffee, was indicted for conspiring to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, oxycodone, and marijuana as part of a drug‑trafficking operation while employed at the facility. The dates of the alleged conspiracy are not specified in the reporting, but the indictment overlaps the period in which Carter served as warden.

Earlier deaths at the prison — including the November 2020 homicide of Kendall Ja’Mal Cromer and the January 2022 homicide of Hendricks Riley Gunn — predate Carter’s appointment and are not attributed to his tenure.

Litigation

Sources

• GPS death and position records — six death entries during Warden Carter’s term at Coffee Correctional Facility.
• FOX 5 Atlanta — report on 16 inmates charged in connection with the December 2025 prison stabbings.
• Yahoo.com — coverage of the Bloods gang allegation in the Coffee stabbings.
• Atlanta Journal‑Constitution — coverage of the Cromer homicide and the indictment of former officer Dacia Gaskins for drug‑trafficking conspiracy.

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Jul 5, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.