Houston \u2013 A Houston family is continuing to demand accountability two years after a U.S. Army veteran died inside a Georgia jail while struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder.<\/p>\n
Friends, family members, and community supporters gathered Sunday at Godwin Park in Meyerland to remember Private Christon Collins, a Houston native and Army veteran who died two years ago while in custody at the DeKalb County Jail.<\/p>\n
Collins died while being held in jail on evading arrest charges.<\/p>\n
The memorial walk took place in the same neighborhood where Collins grew up, near the park where he once played football and near the schools he attended as a child.<\/p>\n
Collins\u2019 mother, Dr. Jonia Milburn, said the past two years have been filled with grief and an ongoing fight for answers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a fight, but we just dare to believe that justice will be served,\u201d said Dr. Milburn.<\/p>\n
Milburn described her son as a loving and curious person whose life changed after returning from military service.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was an amazing son. He was fun. He was loving,\u201d said Milburn. \u201cIt was extremely different. I had to have him stay with me and didn\u2019t even realize that not only was community lives in danger, but so was mine.”<\/p>\n
According to Milburn, Collins had struggled with severe PTSD after returning home from the Army in 2018.<\/p>\n
Milburn said her son was arrested in February 2024 during a mental health crisis while the family was living in the Atlanta area. She said she was trying to get him transferred to receive treatment through the Department of Veterans Affairs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was finally getting him help to go to the VA, and unfortunately, he died in jail because he ingested fentanyl,\u201d said Milburn.<\/p>\n
An inmate who gave Collins the drug that was laced with fentanyl was later sentenced.<\/p>\n
Milburn said video from inside the jail shows Collins collapsing and remaining unresponsive for hours.<\/p>\n
KPRC 2 obtained the video showing a snippet from inside the jail.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe actually laid on the floor for over four hours unresponsive before any aid was rendered to him,\u201d said Milburn.<\/p>\n
The family says many questions remain, including how drugs were able to enter the jail in the first place.<\/p>\n
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump is representing the family in a federal lawsuit against DeKalb County jail.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit was filed last October.<\/p>\n
\u201cChriston Collins should have been treated as a hero, but yet they treat him as lower than zero, as if he didn\u2019t matter,\u201d said Crump.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit accuses jail staff of violating Collins\u2019 constitutional rights by failing to provide medical care while he lay unresponsive.<\/p>\n
Crump says the case highlights broader issues surrounding both jail accountability and mental health support for veterans.<\/p>\n
\u201cMental health crisis is a crisis in America,\u201d said Crump.<\/p>\n
Milburn says her son\u2019s story is why she continues to speak out, not only for Collins but for other families dealing with similar struggles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m never going to stop being your voice,\u201d said Milburn. \u201cI\u2019m always going to fight it for justice, for change, and for accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family\u2019s federal civil rights lawsuit is currently moving through the discovery process in federal court in Georgia.<\/p>\n
Milburn says while no outcome will bring her son back, she hopes their fight will lead to greater accountability and better support for veterans facing mental health challenges.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston \u2013 A Houston family is continuing to demand accountability two years after a U.S. Army veteran died…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[81147,56,58,57,81146],"class_list":["post-206660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-civil-rights-lawsuit","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-jail-accountability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}