Attorney: Bruising on body of man who died in Tarrant jail custody suggests use of force
A man who died following an altercation with officers at the Tarrant County Jail after being arrested during a schizophrenic episode had bruises on his body suggesting the use of force, an attorney representing Anthony Ray Johnson Jr.’s family told the Star-Telegram on Monday.
Johnson’s family said they took him to WellBridge Healthcare, a behavioral health facility in Fort Worth, when he began noticing the symptoms of a schizophrenic episode on April 19. He asked his mother to take him to a hospital because he didn’t want to become a danger to himself or others, his family told the Star-Telegram.
Instead of getting help, though, his family said the facility turned him away because he was not yet violent.
WellBridge in Fort Worth declined Monday to comment on whether Johnson was ever a patient or what the mental health facility’s standards are for admissions, directing questions to the facility’s corporate leadership. A spokesperson for corporate could not be reached for comment Monday.
Johnson, a 31-year-old Marine Corps veteran who was assigned to combat logistics, was diagnosed with schizophrenia after his time in the military, his family said. He took the diagnosis seriously and wasn’t ashamed to seek help, they said.
A military spokesperson told the Star-Telegram that details on his early discharge in 2013 after two years in the Marine Corps cannot be released.
Johnson was arrested in Saginaw later on April 19, the same day he tried to seek help, according to the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office, which handles administration of the jail. He was found holding a knife in an intersection, police said. His family said the schizophrenic episode had taken hold. On April 20, his family said, they heard from him in a phone call from the jail and he seemed to be doing better.
Then, on the morning of April 21, Johnson refused to leave his cell during a routine contraband check, leading to an altercation with detention officers, according to the sheriff’s office.
The sheriff’s office said Johnson was pepper-sprayed and then given medical attention, which is routine. But Daryl Washington, an attorney representing Johnson’s family in their quest to get answers about what happened to him, said he suspects there was more to it.
Bruising on his body suggests more force was used against Johnson than just pepper spray, Washington told the Star-Telegram in a phone interview.
“If there was something to justify this, that would be known very early on,” Washington said. “We haven’t heard anything for justification of what happened, what went on. But it’s evident to us that there was more involved in this than pepper spray. More force.”
The Star-Telegram has filed an open records request for video from the jail showing what happened. The county has sent that request to the Texas Attorney General’s Office seeking permission to withhold the video.
Washington said he hasn’t seen the video, either, but has heard it exists.
“We are asking and we are demanding that any video footage be released,” he said. “They talk about transparency and how they want to be transparent to the public, but in this situation we feel like they’re hiding something that took place.”
The sheriff’s office has declined to comment, citing the Texas Rangers’ involvement in the investigation. In a statement April 23, the Texas Department of Public Safety, of which the Texas Rangers are a department, said the Rangers’ criminal investigation is ongoing and “there is no further information available.”
The Tarrant County Commissioners Court is expected to discuss Johnson’s death and other recent deaths in the Tarrant County Jail at a meeting Tuesday morning.
