{"id":22916,"date":"2025-06-28T22:22:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T22:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/22916\/"},"modified":"2025-06-28T22:22:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T22:22:08","slug":"family-friends-speak-out-about-loved-ones-death-in-harris-county-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/22916\/","title":{"rendered":"Family, friends speak out about loved one\u2019s death in Harris County Jail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">The family and friends of Ronald Erwin Pate, 35, who died June 24 at Ben Taub Hospital after being in Harris County Jail for 13 days, are calling for increased funding and better medical care at the jail.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Saturday at 1 p.m., a press conference was held outside of the Harris County Jail to discuss the situation and the need for change.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 kDvXdO font_openSans articleList\">\n<li class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__StackBase-sc-1fnzlkn-7 ecGWWE iQviKm\"\/><\/ul>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Pate reportedly experienced a medical problem shortly before his death. Early indications suggest he died after being administered medication when he became \u201cagitated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">His family said he was in good health before his incarceration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cHe was a wonderful father&#8230; a wonderful husband and a wonderful nephew,\u201d said Jeana Pate, Ronald\u2019s aunt. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing negative to say about him \u2014 other than he lost his life at 35, too soon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Pate leaves behind a wife and an 11-year-old daughter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Civil rights attorney Randall Kallinen, who represents Pate\u2019s family, is demanding transparency, including the release of jail surveillance videos and medical records.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cThis death needs an investigation such as by the Texas Rangers or FBI,\u201d Kallinen said. \u201cWe are experiencing a surge in jail deaths.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 kDvXdO font_openSans articleList\">\n<li class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__StackBase-sc-1fnzlkn-7 ecGWWE iQviKm\"\/><\/ul>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Two other inmates died within a 48-hour period, bringing the total number of inmate deaths in 2025 to 10 \u2014 matching the total for all of 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cWe want Sheriff [Ed] Gonzalez to release the videos&#8230; Videos don\u2019t lie,\u201d Kallinen said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.click2houston.com\/team\/TB0VZ7DB5PYO36DHL4XWDRPJST\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.click2houston.com\/team\/TB0VZ7DB5PYO36DHL4XWDRPJST\/\">KPRC 2\u2019s Michael Horton <\/a>reached out to the Harris County Sheriff\u2019s Office for a statement regarding the situation. This was their response:<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Michael, we have reported three recent deaths in custody to the jail commission as required, which is reflected on their website. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">We have also added all three deaths to our website , that contains information and a brief narrative. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">We have had 10 deaths in custody year to date. <\/p>\n<p>Breaking News Alerts<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 kiwhtN\">More Stories Like This In Our Email Newsletter<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2025 by KPRC Click2Houston &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The family and friends of Ronald Erwin Pate, 35, who died June 24 at Ben Taub Hospital after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[4219,6386,16309,8323,20882,4345,425,50,358,3187],"class_list":{"0":"post-22916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-crime","9":"tag-harris-county","10":"tag-harris-county-jail","11":"tag-harris-county-sheriffs-office","12":"tag-hcso","13":"tag-houston","14":"tag-local","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-texas","17":"tag-tx"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}