from 2018 through 2025<\/a>, Brown\u2019s first eight years in office. Half had received public mental health treatment in the three years before they died, according to data provided by Texas Commission on Jail Standards.<\/p>\nUndetermined death\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lewis struggled in his early 20s as his diagnosed schizophrenia took hold, his mother said. Arrests for marijuana possession, trespass and assault led to stints in jail and psychiatric hospitals.<\/p>\n
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But things were turning around for Lewis, his mother said. He lived alone, was supporting himself and stayed close with family.<\/p>\n
Then on Sept. 22, 2022, Lewis was arrested by Dallas police for aggravated assault after allegedly striking a man during an altercation near a bus stop in southeast Dallas, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
![\"Lew]()
<\/p>\n
Lew Sterrett Justice Center pictured in Dallas, Friday, July 8, 2022.<\/p>\n
Elias Valverde II\/Staff Photographer<\/p>\n
During booking at the\u00a0Lew Sterrett Justice Center, officers knew of Lewis\u2019 mental illness and placed him on suicide watch, the complaint states.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After midnight on Sept. 23, 2022, three jailers walked Lewis toward the changing room, according to an officer\u2019s memo. Video shows him resisting before officers escort him inside and out of view of the hallway camera, according to a Tarrant County detective assigned by the state to investigate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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A struggle ensued as they tried to handcuff Lewis and he curled into a ball, one officer wrote in a memo. Another stated the group then struggled to handcuff Lewis before they cut off his clothes to put on the uniform, according to an interview transcript. Six guards responded to assist\u00a0\u2014 one with a restraint chair.<\/p>\n
They exited the room 12 minutes later at 12:55 a.m. with Lewis appearing \u201cdisoriented as his head sways from side to side\u201d in the restraint chair, the detective wrote.<\/p>\n
Officers took Lewis to a jail clinic where medical staff performed CPR, court records state. He was transported to Parkland Hospital at 1:45 a.m. and was comatose that day.<\/p>\n
In hospital records, doctors noted Lewis likely suffered a brain injury from lack of oxygen.<\/p>\n
He was declared brain dead and died six days later.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The medical examiner found extreme brain swelling and severe muscle breakdown that can occur after intense exertion, according to the autopsy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But because the medical examiner did not have a full toxicology or video showing how officers restrained Lewis, he did not conclude whether the death was an accident, homicide or medical event. The cause and manner of death were undetermined.<\/p>\n
\u2018No accountability\u2019<\/p>\n
Sophia Lewis\u2019 lawsuit accused six officers of excessive force or failing to intervene. But her lawyers saw Grant as most culpable, said attorney Stephen Pipkin, who co-represented Sophia Lewis with the Clark Von Plonski Anderson law firm.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So when the district judge and then appellate court ruled Grant had qualified immunity, \u201cit basically just robbed us from having a case,\u201d Pipkin said.<\/p>\n
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Qualified immunity is a doctrine created by the Supreme Court in 1967 and expanded over decades that requires plaintiffs in police brutality and misconduct cases to prove two elements: that defendants acted illegally and also should have known they were violating \u201cclearly established\u201d law because a prior court case had found near-identical conduct to be unconstitutional.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A detention officer told Tarrant County investigators Grant stood on Lewis\u2019 legs and above his buttock area while other guards tried to control the 178-pound 24-year-old.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Commissioner]()
<\/p>\n
Commissioner John Wiley Price administers the oath of office to Sheriff Marian Brown.<\/p>\n
Shaban Athuman\/Staff Photographer<\/p>\n
Grant, who could not be reached for comment through her attorney, denied stepping on Lewis. Investigators noted she gave changing accounts in interviews: first saying she sat on the back of Lewis\u2019 legs to keep him from kicking, then saying she straddled his legs.<\/p>\n
Sophia Lewis\u2019 attorneys cited federal court rulings where police had been denied qualified immunity: an officer who put a man in a neck hold while another sat on his chest before he suffocated; officers who used body weight on detainees before tasing them; an officer who slammed a woman\u2019s face into a car while she was handcuffed.<\/p>\n
The appellate court in February ruled those cases didn\u2019t match Grant\u2019s circumstances and would not have put her on notice that standing on Lewis\u2019 legs while the officers tried to handcuff him would be an unreasonable use of force.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so literal,\u201d Pipkin said of qualified immunity. \u201cThey can technically just say there\u2019s no evidence to know their actions were illegal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Supporters say the legal protection is necessary to allow law enforcement and other government officials to do their jobs without fear of civil consequences.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The doctrine has long been viewed by critics as giving police free rein to kill people.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no accountability until the law changes,\u201d Pipkin said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
No apology<\/p>\n
To Sophia Lewis it felt like her son\u2019s life was repeatedly violated. She said the sheriff\u2019s office never told her that her son was comatose in the hospital\u00a0\u2014 a Parkland nurse called her three days after he arrived.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her son\u2019s death led to her own mental health struggles as she grappled with grief and guilt. Nobody from the county has ever offered an apology for her son\u2019s death, she said.<\/p>\n
![\"Shamond]()
<\/p>\n
Shamond Lewis, left, visits with his mother, center, and sister. Lewis died in 2022 after an altercation with detention officers in the Dallas County jail.<\/p>\n
Sophia Lewis<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll never get over this, but we learn to cope,\u201d she said. \u201cNo one deserves to die like that, especially when there is a uniform saying we\u2019re there to protect and serve.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to state licensing records, all six officers named in the lawsuit are still employed with the sheriff\u2019s office except for Grant, who left in 2024. Brown, the sheriff, did not answer whether Grant resigned or was fired.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pipkin said the jailers who knew about Lewis\u2019 mental health history should have called for the jail\u2019s psychiatric staff when he refused to put on the jail uniform.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sophia Lewis thinks every day how things may have turned out differently.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shamond Lewis, 24, died after an altercation with Dallas County jail officers in 2022.\u00a0 Sophia Lewis A hallway…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":["post-400802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400802","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=400802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}