As Tarrant County continues to withhold information about a third-party autopsy review related to a 2019 jail death, Sheriff Bill Waybourn held a press conference Tuesday to tout his agency’s accomplishments.
Waybourn told reporters that he normally did press conferences when I needed to talk about a “horrible” topic. This time, she said that he wanted to deliver “good news.” Waybourn said there had been scrutiny and misinformation surrounding the office.
“Hopefully we can straighten out the record to the best of our ability today and go from there,” he said.
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The sheriff told reporters that Tarrant County brought home five American Jail Association awards, and that the jail had referred 455 people to capacity recovery programs or transferred them to outside care for health treatment. mental.
Waybourn then addressed what he called the “elephant in the room”: deaths in custody.
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Tarrant County has had 52 in-custody deaths since 2017, according to data provided by the sheriff’s office. Fourteen of those deaths occurred inside the jail and 38 occurred at JPS Hospital. Three deaths were suicides. In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, seven inmates died of COVID-19.
The numbers are comparable to jails of a similar size in Bexar, Harris and Dallas counties.
Waybourn said every jail death is reviewed by the county, the medical examiner, the Texas attorney general and Texas Jail Standards. She said none of the jail deaths were murder.
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“A lot of hands are on it,” Waybourn said. “And at no time has a jailer been at fault for hurting or abusing or, in any way, as the term has been used, murderThat has never happened.”
Asked by reporters what misinformation was being spread about the Sheriff’s Office, Waybourn said he has heard people go to commissioners court and accuse employees of murdering and beating inmates. Waybourn said it was okay for him to ask questions about prison deaths when they happen.
“We want to be as transparent as possible,” Waybourn said. “But I always tell people we’re not the only investigative agency, so we have to be careful what information we release because of litigation or the possibility of criminal charges coming out of another agency.”
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No information on the new autopsy of Robert G. Miller
County leaders have been silent about a third-party autopsy review of Robert G. Miller, an inmate who died in 2019 after being pepper-sprayed three times at close range and not receiving medical attention when he told a nurse who couldn’t breathe.
The contract for the revision expired on February 28. The leaders have not responded to questions about the review and said there are no records related to it.
Waybourn said he did not know when more information about the third-party review of the autopsy would come out. He said that he believed it was important for the public and Miller’s family to have transparency about what happened to Miller inside the prison walls.
The Tarrant County pathologist had called Miller’s death “natural” from a sickle cell crisis. Miller’s family and experts who spoke to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for an investigation into his death say who never had sickle cell disease.
Tarrant County Commissioners Hired in December to an outside medical examiner, J. Scott Denton of Bloomington, Illinois, to conduct the review as a result of the Star-Telegram investigation.
County officials originally submitted a records request made by the Star-Telegram through the Texas Public Information Act to the Texas Attorney General’s Office to see if they could retain the records.
The Star-Telegram had news on Wednesday Regarding that request for records: Officials from the Criminal District Attorney’s Office say that there are no communications or records of the review. The county later withdrew its request for an opinion from the Office of the Attorney General.
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