Attorneys representing different parties tied to an in-custody death at the Tarrant County Jail last month are calling on the sheriff’s office to release more video footage related to the incident.
The demands come after Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn held a news conference Thursday and released 5 minutes of footage he said informed his decision to fire two jailers who responded to the April 21 incident that ended with Anthony Johnson Jr.’s death.
Daryl Washington, an attorney representing Johnson’s family, said in a Tuesday news release the videos contradicted information the sheriff’s office provided prior to Thursday announcements. Johnson, a former Marine who authorities say suffered from schizophrenia, was 31.
Before the conference last week, the family was shown 14 minutes of footage, Washington said. That video showed Johnson being “dragged” and “brutalized” after “it was clear he was unresponsive and in need of urgent medical attention that he failed to receive,” the attorney said in the release.
“In my line of work, I have seen a lot of videos revealing what truly happened during officer-involved incidents and this video was one of the worst I have ever seen,” Washington said in the statement.
A spokesperson for the Tarrant County sheriff’s office did not return phone and text messages seeking comment or respond to a list of emailed questions Tuesday.
The 5-minute video publicly shared shows former jailer Rafael Moreno kneeling on Johnson for about 90 seconds. Johnson is handcuffed in the footage, yelled that he couldn’t breathe and could be heard struggling for air.
The video, which was partially captured via cellphone by former Tarrant County sheriff’s Lt. Joel Garcia, ends once the jailers prepare to move Johnson. The sheriff’s office has only described what happened next, saying Johnson became unresponsive and later died.
The sheriff’s office said April 22 the death was the result of a “medical emergency” after a fight during a “cell check.” Moreno and Garcia, the supervisor at the time, were fired last week, Waybourn announced Thursday.
Waybourn said Garcia was fired because he did not properly respond to the “urgency of the situation” and made missteps in seeking medical attention for Johnson. Moreno was fired because he should not have used his knee to pin Johnson once he was already handcuffed, Waybourn said.
Randall Moore, an attorney representing Garcia, has also called on the sheriff’s office to release more of the footage. In an interview Tuesday, he said Waybourn’s description of how his client was slow to seek medical attention for Johnson was incorrect.
Moore said the remainder of the footage shows Garcia acted quickly once he saw something was wrong and in accordance with sheriff’s office policy.
“I think [if] they’re going to get out there and show part of the video then make comments about what does and doesn’t happen in the remainder of it, then they need to just show it all the way,” Moore told The Dallas Morning News. “Or they need to not comment on what they are not showing because I don’t have any way to rebut that.”
Washington called on the sheriff’s office to release the “full video” and said “everyone involved” should face criminal charges.
It is unclear whether the fired jail staff — who were two of more than a dozen jail staff shown responding to the incident in the videos — will face charges.
Jane Bishkin, an attorney with the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, told WFAA-TV (Channel 8) last week that Moreno’s termination letter did not list a reason for the firing. Waybourn acted prematurely and should have waited for the final medical examiner’s report before the decision to fire Moreno, she told the station.
Johnson had been in jail after an arrest by officers in Saginaw, where he was accused of “wielding a knife at a driver” while standing in the roadway, the sheriff’s office previously said. He was facing multiple charges, including possession of a controlled substance and evading arrest/detention.
The Texas Rangers, the investigative arm of the Department of Public Safety, is investigating the death. Sgt. William Lockridge, a DPS spokesperson, said investigators were awaiting autopsy results. An autopsy for Johnson was pending Tuesday afternoon, according to online Tarrant County medical examiner records.
