Tarrant County maintains it is not responsible for the death of Anthony Johnson Jr., who died in jail custody in 2024, according to a court filing Monday.<\/p>\n
Filed in the U.S. Fifth Circuit of Appeals, the county argues among several things that the Johnson family have not proved Tarrant County is responsible for any civil rights violations or that jailers lacked proper training that risked the safety of inmates.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The Johnsons] have wholly failed to plead a pattern of similar violations, much less a pattern arising out of allegedly similarly deficient training, supervision, or discipline,\u201d the court filing read. “[The Johnsons] did not allege specifically how Tarrant County\u2019s policies were defective or how the county should have further trained its officers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The filing is part of a lawsuit from the family of Johnson, a Marine veteran who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, according to his family. He died after detention officers pepper sprayed him and restrained him face-down on the floor of the jail, according to the Tarrant County Sheriff\u2019s Office and video of the incident.<\/p>\n
Partially released video footage<\/a> shows one jailer knelt on Johnson\u2019s back for 90 seconds, while Johnson said he couldn\u2019t breathe. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner\u2019s Office ruled Johnson\u2019s death a homicide by asphyxiation.<\/p>\n Johnson Jr.\u2019s parents sued Tarrant County and 15 detention officers following his death, but U.S. District Court Judge Reed O\u2019Connor\u00a0dismissed Tarrant County and seven jailers from the suit<\/a> last year. O\u2019Connor ruled the Johnsons failed to prove the county\u2019s policies and procedures led to Anthony’s death and that those six jailers had any responsibility in his death. Two jailers — Rafael Moreno and Joel Garcia \u2014 have been indicted for murder and are awaiting trial.<\/a><\/p>\n Johnson Jr.\u2019s family filed an appeal on that decision in December<\/a>, arguing the county and jailers should be added back to the suit because the jail’s history with previous inmates’ deaths is enough to prove jail policy and training failed to keep people safe in custody.<\/p>\n More than 70 people have died at Tarrant County Jail since 2017. But Monday’s court filing claims prior jail deaths were, \u201cnot specific nor similar enough to form a sufficient pattern\u201d to support some of the family\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the county to now try to argue that they’re not responsible for all the deaths that took place and for them to argue that they provided their jailers with adequate training is disingenuous,\u201d Daryl Washington, an attorney for the Johnson family, told KERA News Monday. \u201cAnthony should be alive today.\u201d<\/p>\n Washington said one of the most critical pieces of evidence in this case is the full unredacted video leading up to Johnson\u2019s death \u2013 something the county said the family is not entitled to in Monday\u2019s court filing. They pointed to a trial court\u2019s previous ruling that did not require the video to be released.<\/p>\n The county released parts of two videos in 2024<\/a> \u2013 one from security camera footage and the other from a cell phone video.<\/p>\n While Tarrant County fights to stay off the suit, it\u2019s still responsible for paying for legal counsel for some of the jailers. Commissioners approved an additional $60,000<\/a> during last month\u2019s commissioners court meeting to retain attorneys for two of the detention officers initially named in the suit.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead of acknowledging that Anthony’s death was wrong and trying to fix a broken system, what they’ve decided to do now is to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars defending wrong,\u201d Washington said. \u201cIt\u2019s not going to discourage the family. We’re going to continue to fight to the very end. It doesn’t matter how much it costs.\u201d<\/p>\n Additional reporting by Miranda Suarez.<\/p>\n Penelope Rivera is KERA’s Tarrant County Accountability Reporter. Got a tip? Email Penelope Rivera at\u00a0privera@kera.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n