Tarrant County not required to release full video of Anthony Johnson’s death: DA’s office
The Texas Attorney General’s Office has ruled that Tarrant County may withhold the full video of Anthony Johnson Jr.’s jail death, but Johnson’s family says the fight for change is just beginning.
Daryl Washington, the family’s attorney, said in a statement Saturday that they aren’t surprised by Attorney General Ken Paxton’s decision.
“Sheriff Waybourn, JPS Hospital and other Tarrant County officials do not want the full video to be released because it will expose how Anthony was treated in an inhumane manner shortly before and after his death,” Washington said.
Paxton’s ruling, dated July 15 but made public this week, says the sheriff’s office may withhold the video because of the Texas Rangers’ ongoing investigation into Johnson’s death.
“We conclude the release of the information at issue would interfere with the detection, investigation, or prosecution of crime,” the attorney general’s ruling states.
On July 22, Johnson’s family filed a lawsuit against Tarrant County, two named jailers and other unnamed jailers in connection with Johnson’s death. Washington said the lawsuit isn’t about the money, but about seeing change at the Tarrant County Jail.
Johnson died of asphyxiation in the Tarrant County Jail on April 21 after a fight with detention officers during a contraband search, authorities have said. The 31-year-old Marine veteran was pepper-sprayed and held down while handcuffed until he went unconscious, according to partial video of the altercation.
Cell phone video shows a heavyset jailer put his knee on Johnson’s back for 90 seconds, while Johnson can be heard saying he can’t breathe.
The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Johnson’s death a homicide caused by mechanical and chemical asphyxiation.
Rafael Moreno, the jailer who knelt on Johnson, and supervisor Lt. Joel Garcia were indicted on murder charges in June. They were fired by Sheriff Bill Waybourn, and they are both named as defendants in the lawsuit.
“The wheels of justice continue to turn in this case,” Sheriff Bill Waybourn said in a statement announcing the indictment. “I said from the beginning that we hold accountable anyone responsible for Mr. Johnson’s death and we are doing that.”
The Sheriff’s Office released the partial version of the video May 16 after weeks of Star-Telegram investigative work. Multiple sources, including the family, have told the Star-Telegram the full version depicts jailers showing little interest in getting help for Johnson and medical professionals demonstrating no urgency in treating him.
In spite of the attorney general’s ruling to withhold the full video from the public, Washington said Johnson’s family and other families who have lost loved ones in the Tarrant County Jail will continue to fight for “transparency, accountability and change.”
“Sheriff Waybourn may believe this is the end, but this is only the beginning of the fight for change,” Washington said in the statement. “Justice delayed will not be justice denied.”
According to data from the sheriff’s office, 63 inmates died in the Tarrant County Jail between 2017 and April of this year. Eleven deaths were due to COVID-19, and 32 were from other natural causes. Four were attributed to fentanyl overdoses, three were accidental, six were suicides and one was a homicide. One death was caused by gunshot wounds from a shootout with U.S. marshals, the Sheriff’s Office said.
U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, a Fort Worth Democrat, has called the deaths a “distressing pattern.” He and Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons have asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the deaths at the Tarrant County Jail.
🚨 More top stories from our newsroom:
→ Adoption lawyer accused of paying inmates for babies
→ 2 dogs shot on property of North Texas megachurch
→ 20-year-old victim of brutal homicide
[Get our breaking news alerts.]
