The family of a man who died after a Tarrant County jailer knelt on his back wants the county added back on to a wrongful death lawsuit.<\/p>\n
The parents of Anthony Johnson Jr. sued Tarrant County and 15 detention officers after Johnson\u2019s death last year. In February, U.S. District Court Judge Reed O\u2019Connor\u00a0excused Tarrant County from the lawsuit<\/a>, ruling the Johnsons failed to prove the county\u2019s policies and procedures led to Anthony’s death.<\/p>\n O\u2019Connor also dropped the case against several of the jailers named in the lawsuit, although it continued against others.<\/p>\n The Johnson family now argues they should get another chance to sue the county and the dismissed jailers, in an appeal filed last week with the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The history of deaths in the Tarrant County Jail is enough to prove jail policy and training fail to keep people safe in custody, the Johnson family\u2019s attorneys argued.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Anthony Johnson, a Tarrant County pre-trial detainee who was suffering from a mental health episode, was killed by Tarrant County jail officers, it should have come as no surprise to Tarrant County,\u201d the appeal filing read. \u201cIt was simply business as usual.\u201d<\/p>\n In a brief emailed statement, the Tarrant County District Attorney\u2019s Office said: \u201cWe agree with the trial court\u2019s ruling.\u201d<\/p>\n Johnson was a Marine veteran who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, according to his family. He died after detention officers pepper sprayed him and restrained him face-down on the floor of the jail, according to the Tarrant County Sheriff\u2019s Office and video of the incident.<\/p>\n Then a jailer knelt on his back for 90 seconds while Johnson shouted he couldn\u2019t breathe. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner\u2019s Office determined his death was a homicide by asphyxiation.<\/p>\n Two now-former jailers have been indicted for murder and are awaiting trial: Rafael Moreno, who knelt on Johnson, and Joel Garcia, who filmed the incident. They are also two of the remaining defendants in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n The number of jail deaths spiked under Sheriff Bill Waybourn, who took office in 2017. Deaths during his tenure peaked at 17 in 2020, according to in-custody death data from the Texas Attorney General\u2019s Office. While numbers have gone down in recent years, lawsuits over deaths and allegations of neglect and abuse behind bars have continued.<\/p>\n The county paid out its biggest lawsuit settlement in history — $1.2 million\u2013 to\u00a0Chasity Congious<\/a>, a woman who gave birth alone in her cell in 2020. Her daughter Zenorah died at 10 days old.<\/p>\n In July, Judge O\u2019Connor\u00a0dismissed a lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0against the doctor in charge of jail medical care when Congious was in custody. He ruled the lawsuit failed to prove the doctor was deliberately indifferent to her medical needs.<\/p>\n He also dismissed a lawsuit over the in-custody death of Trelynn Wormley, who died of a fentanyl overdose in 2022, months into his jail stay. The lawsuit\u00a0failed to prove county policies and procedures<\/a>\u00a0led to Wormley\u2019s death, he ruled\u2013 like he did in the Johnson case.<\/p>\n