{"id":29417,"date":"2025-07-01T08:49:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T08:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/29417\/"},"modified":"2025-07-01T08:49:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T08:49:16","slug":"family-friends-of-harris-county-jail-inmate-ronald-pate-demand-answers-about-his-death-houston-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/29417\/","title":{"rendered":"Family, friends of Harris County Jail inmate Ronald Pate demand answers about his death \u2013 Houston Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"Ronald<\/a><\/p>\n

Sarah Grunau\/Houston Public Media<\/p>\n

Jeana Pate speaks about the recent death of Harris County Jail inmate Ronald Pate, her nephew, during a news conference on June 28, 2025.<\/p>\n

Family members and friends are demanding answers about the circumstances surrounding Ronald Pate\u2019s sudden death inside of the Harris County Jail last week. <\/p>\n

The 35-year-old Pate, who was pulled over for speeding and arrested for an outstanding warrant earlier this month, was jailed for 13 days before he suffered a medical emergency inside of the jail, according to the Harris County Sheriff\u2019s Office. But Jeana Pate, his aunt, says Ronald Pate had no pre-existing medical conditions and was not taking medications before he died.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was just as healthy,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s a tile setter. He was going to work everyday, no problems. So it took me back. I mean, I didn\u2019t have words.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five days after she last heard from him, Jeana Pate received a call from the Harris County Chaplain, who told her that Ronald Pate became agitated for an unknown reason. He was treated with a medication and developed muscle atrophy, Jeana Pate says she was told, adding that her nephew then had seizures and went into cardiac arrest. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was told that when he went into cardiac arrest, it took 15 minutes to revive him back,\u201d Jeana Pate said. \u201cSo I ask myself, was that because they just disregarded it, and didn\u2019t come as soon possible, or did the ambulance come delayed? So I want to get to the bottom of it and figure out exactly what happened.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Harris County Sheriff\u2019s Office, which operates the downtown Houston jail, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. The sheriff\u2019s office previously confirmed Ronald Pate\u2019s death but did not provide details about the circumstances leading up to it. <\/p>\n

Pate was among 10 people to have died this year in the custody of the Harris County Jail, including two other men who suffered sudden medical emergencies inside of the jail last week \u2014 Alexander Winstel, 43, and Phillip Brummett, 68<\/a>. The circumstances surrounding their deaths is still at the center of investigations by the Houston Police Department and Texas Rangers. <\/p>\n

Kim Wedemeier, a friend of Pate\u2019s, described him as a gentle giant. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe had a promising future,\u201d she said. \u201cFor this to happen to him is very sad and I feel awful for his family, especially for his child. So it would be great if we could figure out what happened to him and get to the bottom of this, and not only him, but the other inmates, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ronald<\/a><\/p>\n

Sarah Grunau\/Houston Public Media<\/p>\n

Jeana Pate, Ronald Pate\u2019s aunt, holds her phone, displaying a photograph of Ronald, on June 28, 205.<\/p>\n

Ten people reportedly died while in jail custody last year, according to information released by the sheriff’s office. That was a decrease from 2023, when 19 people died. Twenty-seven in-custody deaths were reported in 2022 \u2014 the highest number in nearly two decades, according to county records and data from the Texas Justice Initiative.<\/p>\n

The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences has not released causes of death for many of those who have died in the jail this year \u2014 leaving families like Pate\u2019s in the dark. The medical examiner\u2019s office has only determined the cause of death of 39-year-old Kristopher McGregor, who died in jail custody earlier this year of sepsis associated with kidney failure. <\/p>\n

Randall Kallinen, a Houston-based civil rights attorney, said he is working to receive Pate\u2019s medical records to determine if negligence was a factor in his death. He said outside agencies, like the Texas Rangers, should continue investigating jail deaths rather than local agencies. <\/p>\n

He said it\u2019s disconcerting when it takes too long for medical examiners to conduct autopsy reports. Though autopsy reports are generally considered matters of public record, some reports can be withheld from the public if they are at the center of an ongoing investigation. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe public should know why people are passing away in Harris County,\u201d Kallinen said. \u201cWhen a person has passed away, they generally do not have any more privacy rights and the people should have a right to know why people have passed away, especially when they are in custody of a government that they pay taxes for like Harris County.\u201d <\/p>\n

The death of an inmate who died after being outsourced from the Harris County Jail to a private facility in Louisiana is at the center of a lawsuit filed in Harris County earlier this year. Jaleen Anderson, 29, was one of thousands of pre-trial detainees who have been outsourced to other prisons because of the jail’s repeated failure to comply with Texas’ mandated ratio of detention officers to inmates.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Harris County, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez sued by family of outsourced jail inmate who died in Louisiana facility<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

About a week after he arrived at the LaSalle Correctional Center in Louisiana last year, Anderson was transferred to a hospital after complaining of dizziness and vomiting. He was pronounced dead hours later. An autopsy report shows that Anderson died from a seizure disorder in combination with cardiovascular disease. Sarah Knight, his mother, said the private facility continuously neglected his and others\u2019 pleas for medical care.<\/p>\n

From 2023 through 2024, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards issued 149 notices of noncompliance and referred the Harris County Jail to the Texas Attorney General\u2019s Office earlier this year after repeated violations. Last week, a representative of the Texas Jail Project called on the AG’s office to file an injunction against the Harris County Jail as requested by the state commission in its last two quarterly meetings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey go in and they don\u2019t deserve to die,\u201d Wedemeier said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sarah Grunau\/Houston Public Media Jeana Pate speaks about the recent death of Harris County Jail inmate Ronald Pate,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":29418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[25146,6386,16309,16310,8323,4345,25147,25148,425,50,358,3187],"class_list":{"0":"post-29417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-criminal-justice","9":"tag-harris-county","10":"tag-harris-county-jail","11":"tag-harris-county-jail-deaths","12":"tag-harris-county-sheriffs-office","13":"tag-houston","14":"tag-houston-jail","15":"tag-inmate-deaths","16":"tag-local","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-texas","19":"tag-tx"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114777120581811232","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29417","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=29417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}