ATLANTA — Our partners at Channel 2 Action News have confirmed that Fulton County Commissioners are trying to kill the deal between the Fulton County Sheriff and Talitrix, a company hired to monitor the health of inmates.
Commissioners stopped payments to Talitrix saying the company failed to deliver, but the contract between the Sheriff’s Office and Talitrix might still be alive.
“Radio frequency is what we use,” said Micah Gravley, Vice President of Business Development for Talitrix, during a tour of the technology in action at the Fulton County Jail in Alpharetta.
The company uses wristbands to monitor the health of inmates.
Deputies get alerts on a dashboard when someone is in trouble.
“If it’s somebody that is having an event, the heart rate starts dropping, maybe low blood sugars happening, something to that extent. It’s going to alert because of the signals that we’ve set on there,” Gravley said.
Some 31 inmates at the Alpharetta Jail wear them, but only 16 wear them at the main Fulton County Jail on Rice Street, instead of the 500 promised for $2.1 million in tax dollars.
“Basically, all they had to do was to sign their name to the contract. There was no work product,” said Fulton County Commissioner Bob Ellis.
Commissioners approved the money after 10 deaths at the jail so far this year.
But with so few wristbands in operation, they began questioning if they even worked.
“My conclusion is based upon everything that I have heard, it sounds like Fulton County has been funding their R&D,” said Fulton County Commission Chair Robb Pitts.
Talitrix said they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on research that proves the system works.
“Saying this is unproven and untested, both are false statements. Both are malicious statements and unwarranted. Because we have tested this. We tested it in Fulton County,” Gravley said.
Stay with 95.5 WSB for more on why the Fulton County Sheriff and the company say more inmates haven’t gotten the wristbands.
WSB-TV’s Sophia Choi contributed to this story
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