Tarrant County’s Sheriff Waybourn fields questions about jail deaths during heated forum
Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn defended the conditions at the county jail during a heated public forum Thursday night.
Waybourn and six other panelists fielding questions and criticism about inmate deaths and other concerns about the jail. The sheriff responded at one point by saying Tarrant County’s jail was one of the best in the county.
“Last year, the American Jail Association handed out 10 national awards,” Waybourn said. “Well, after it was said and done and the dust settled, the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office received five of those awards. Five of those awards and we have strived to be the best sheriff’s office in the country.”
The session at a sub-courthouse in Arlington was a town hall in Precinct 2, represented by Commissioner Alisa L. Simmons. Other panelists included the Rev. Katherine Godby of Justice Network of Tarrant County, Pamela Young of United Fort Worth, Magistrate Judge Tamla Ray, criminal court Judge Deborah Nekhom, courts administrator Greg Shugart and Krishnaveni Gundu of Texas Jail Project.
There have been 60 deaths in the Tarrant County’s jail since Waybourn took office in 2017. The sheriff said of the deaths during his tenure, all but six were due to natural causes and or drugs. He also addressed allegations of jailers using lethal force and officers lying on reports and by asking attendees to name specific cases or incidents he needed to look into.
“They’re having heart attacks because they use drugs, they use opioids that cause cardiac arrest. We brought people into the jail, and this happens all the time,” Waybourn said. “Those things happen all the time in our jail. A lot of times these people come in fighting us and we have what we call excited delirium, whether they’re hyped up on cocaine or they’re hyped up on methamphetamines and those things.”
Waybourn said that naloxone had to be used on several occasions in the jail last week for opioid overdoses.
The jail has 80 staff members dedicated to addressing inmates’ mental health issues and 205 staff members to address physical health.
Some of the more than 100 people who attended the forum voiced concerns about the rising jail population, the care and treatment of inmates and the contract the county has with a private jail in Garza County.
The contract with the private jail has been funded by over $40 million from American Rescue Plan.
Attendees said the Garza County jail is out of compliance with Texas jail standards and that one prisoner who was sent from Tarrant County died in custody there.
Patrick Mosses, a Democrat who is running for sheriff, also spoke about the deaths in the Tarrant County jail and criticized Waybourn, a Republican, for his role in creating the county’s election fraud unit.
“You just mentioned to us sheriff that you don’t chase conspiracy theories, but you sir are part of a great conspiracy and that conspiracy is your role while neglecting people who are dying in the jail, you’re part of this great conspiracy when there’s no documented evidence of election fraud in Tarrant County,” Mosses said.
Democratic state Rep. Chris Turner, who represents Arlington, confronted Waybourn about the annual number of deaths at the jail.
“We’ve seen a lot of really disturbing news coverage of some of the circumstances of these deaths. They weren’t all COVID deaths,” Turner said. “I have to wonder if there’s mission creep happening in the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office.”
Turner also said he wondered whether the sheriff’s office participation in 287G, which allows the department to partner with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the election task force distracted from the core mission to “run the jail well.”
“That is my concern with what’s happened in the jail in the last seven years and I would say, yes, Tarrant County’s population has increased since Dee Anderson was sheriff. It has not more than doubled since Anderson was sheriff. And the deaths in the jail have more than doubled on an annual basis,” Turner said.
Waybourn said that the death toll is due to the pandemic as well as a rise in drug usage.
“It could be expounding or accelerated a whole lot due to the drug, and I believe that’s some of the root cause,” Waybourn said.
Waybourn also said that inmates are treated at the jail’s urgent care clinic or taken to the hospital when they’re in need of medical treatment.
“I think that there was a lot of misinformation out there and a lot of misinformation given but hey, it’s a public forum where people here want to hear the facts. I wanted to present facts, not conjure up anything, that was the purpose of being here,” Waybourn said after the panel.
“The people of Tarrant County gathered up, and wanted to talk to the sheriff. I wanted to be available.”
