‘We want to know the truth.’ Activists push for results of Tarrant County jail death review
Cries are mounting for the release of results in the third-party autopsy review of a Tarrant County Jail death as officials withhold the information from the public.
At Tarrant County’s commissioners meeting Tuesday, eight people showed up to demand the release of information surrounding the death of Robert G. Miller, who died in 2019 after he was pepper-sprayed during his booking in jail.
A forensic pathologist who conducted Miller’s autopsy at the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office listed Miller’s death as “natural” from a sickle cell crisis. Miller’s family said he didn’t have sickle cell, and experts who spoke with the Star-Telegram for an October investigation came to the same conclusion.
The Star-Telegram article spurred an internal autopsy review. That contract expired Feb. 28, and county officials have remained quiet on the findings.
Members of Broadway Baptist Church’s justice committee have continuously advocated for a U.S. Department of Justice review into Miller’s case. Those calls continued during public comment at Tuesday’s county commissioners meeting.
Committee member Jennifer Nelson said she was “deeply disturbed and alarmed” by what she reads and researches about Miller. She told the commissioners there no longer appeared to be litigation that would prevent the county from releasing information, mentioning the Star-Telegram and Miller’s family’s request for information.
“The only action I see which I’m deeply alarmed by is Tarrant County officials seeking an opinion from the Texas Attorney General’s Office on whether or not they can withhold those records,” Nelson said. “Why?”
County commissioners voted last week to expand rules for eligibility for its mental health jail diversion center on West Morphy Street in Fort Worth’s Fairmount neighborhood after the center little use over the year it has been open.
Nelson and others applauded the county’s efforts, but they also wondered how Miller’s story would be different had the center existed at the time of his arrest.
Justice committee member Merl Glasscock believes the entire story would be different — she doesn’t think Miller would have died, and that there would be no “lurking secrets” about Miller’s death.
“We want to know the truth,” Glasscock said.
Becky Delaune, another justice committee member, said Miller’s family, too, had been denied information.
“Secrecy breeds suspicion, insecurity and distrust,” she said.
Justice committee member Jackee Cox said if the DA’s office was going to prevent the public from knowing if Miller was murdered, it would anger those who believe the law should be on their side and not used to cover up a murder.
“There’s something very deeply divisive about a governmental body taking a position against its citizens to hide pride,” Cox said.
As Cox finished and the public comment period ended, no other county officials had anything to say before the gavel slammed.
