By Joe Johnson
A prisoner at the Clarke County Jail has been charged with aggravated assault for strangling his cell mate.
The incident landed the victim, 56-year-old Andrew McIntosh, in a hospital intensive care unit from his heart having stopped, temporarily halting the flow of oxygen to his brain.
The incident was found to have happened the morning of April 5, when a sheriff’s deputy responded to a jail cell to investigate a reported fight, according to a Clarke County Sheriff’s Office incident report.
Upon arrival to the scene the deputy saw 41-year-old Latif Abney “mounted on McIntish’s back” with “his arms wrapped around the neck of MdIntosh,” according to an affidavit for for Abbey’s arrest warrant.
After getting Abney off of McIntosh, the deputy checked and found that the victim “had no discernible pulse,” the affidavit stated.
McIntosh was transported with an apparent fractured neck to Piedmont Athens Regional Medical Center, where he was placed on life-support systems.
He was later moved out of the intensive care unit, and has yet to open his eyes.