An inmate arrested for trespassing and possession of a controlled substance is now facing murder charges after allegedly sneaking drugs into the Dallas County Jail, according to an arrest warrant.<\/p>\n
The documents said 26-year-old Daisy Zuniga smuggled a bag of drugs, including fentanyl, inside her vagina when booked in the Dallas County Jail.<\/p>\n
An inmate died and three others, including Zuniga, became ill after ingesting the narcotics, according to the document.<\/p>\n
‘They are not moving’<\/p>\n
According to an arrest warrant affidavit, during a ‘face-to-face security round’ inside the Lew Sterrett North Tower Justice Center on the 7th floor, around 8:23 p.m. on July 13, inmates called the detention officers.<\/p>\n
“They are not moving,” said the inmates according to the document.<\/p>\n
Officers found 21-year-old Quinnetta Brinkley unresponsive on a bottom bunk and another inmate on the floor in cell ‘C’. Both women were taken to Parkland Hospital.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in cell ‘D,’ inmates started banging on the window, saying two other inmates seemed like they were going to pass out.<\/p>\n
According to the document, someone said Zuniga had “fetty,” also known as fentanyl, “stuffed up her vagina when she came into the tank.” The document said because of the allegations, Zuniga was given a strip search.<\/p>\n
Both Zuniga and the other inmate were taken to the nurse’s station to be evaluated. Zuniga fell on the ground, started convulsing and vomiting, according to the document. When a nurse asked her what she took, the suspect said “fentanyl and bars.” <\/p>\n
All four women were transported to the hospital in different ambulances. <\/p>\n
Brinkley was pronounced dead around 9:25 p.m. at the hospital. <\/p>\n
The Dallas County Sheriff’s Office contacted their Criminal Investigation Section to let them know, “Four Dallas County Jail inmates had overdosed on fentanyl and were transported to Parkland.”<\/p>\n
While investigating, police said the detective observed a blue baggy containing a white substance inside the cell. After performing a field test, the substance was positive for fentanyl.<\/p>\n
An inmate who was in cell ‘C’ said the suspect had “Xanax bars, ‘Ice’ (methamphetamine) and fentanyl.” <\/p>\n
The same witness told investigators, “That the suspect had told them that she held the drugs in her ‘crack’ and got them into the jail when she was booked into the jail,” explained the arrest warrant. <\/p>\n
She said the suspect provided the three drugs to the victim and two other inmates who snorted them between lunch and dinner and after dinner. <\/p>\n
The arrest and admission<\/p>\n
Zuniga was originally arrested on July 11 for trespassing at an apartment complex in the 2700 block of South Cockrell Hill Road.<\/p>\n
According to that arrest warrant, the apartment complex saw an increase in crime related to people who are homeless squatting in vacant units.<\/p>\n
Police found Zuniga in one of them. <\/p>\n
In the arrest warrant, officers said that after knocking and announcing themselves for a few minutes, a man opened the door. He was arrested, and then Zuniga was arrested.<\/p>\n
Police found a backpack with a little more than an ounce of cocaine inside.<\/p>\n
“Zuniga admitted to ownership of the backpack and its contents,” said the officer in the report. <\/p>\n
She was booked into the Dallas County Jail, but was able to make it through the X-ray and pat-down with the drugs without being detected, according to the report.<\/p>\n
The incident inside the jail happened two days after she was booked. <\/p>\n
Once released from the hospital and back to jail, the report said, “the suspect eventually admitted to putting a plastic baggie inside her vagina to hide the drugs from Dallas police officers who were approaching her because she was trespassing. She stated that she successfully made it through the X-ray scanner and a strip search without the drugs being detected.”<\/p>\n
It goes on to state Zuniga admitted to sharing the drugs with the victim and two other inmates, but didn’t remember everything that happened that night.<\/p>\n
The Dallas County Sheriff’s Office said it cannot comment at this time because of the ongoing criminal and administrative investigation.<\/p>\n
The Texas Commission on Jail Standards said it was notified about the in-custody death, but because of the investigation cannot provide any additional comments.<\/p>\n
‘Out of 7,000 people, something is going to happen’<\/p>\n
District 3 Dallas County Commissioner, John Wiley Price, said he couldn’t comment on specifics of what happened, but gave an overview of some of the challenges with managing a population of about 7,000 inmates.<\/p>\n
“We have a small city, it’s a 24\/7 operation,” explained Price. “You’ve got 350 to 400 inmates that are in-and-out daily. Every 20 days we’re moving an entire city, so it didn’t surprise me.” <\/p>\n
He said there are many ways substances get in and out of the facility, which is why they use airport security-like machines at the entrance of booking.<\/p>\n
He said in addition to the technology, officers also perform pat searches when inmates enter the intake area to be booked into the jail. <\/p>\n
“Every once in a while, out of 7,000 people, something is going to happen, and we wish it didn’t,” said Price. <\/p>\n
When asked if a machine doesn’t pick up an item, would it automatically trigger a cavity search? Price said, “Not necessarily. I mean, a machine definitely triggers a cavity search, but sometimes once they leave the machine area and enter the intake area, they may do a cavity search anyway.”<\/p>\n
“You’ve got to get them to medical, to see if they’re custody appropriate before they either are able to maintain them here or send them to the hospital. So you only have two cavity rooms that people are constantly searching. That’s massive, and unfortunately, every once in a while [something is missed],” said Price.<\/p>\n
He still applauded the detention officers’ efforts on a daily basis, given that Dallas County is the second largest in the state and ninth largest in the country.<\/p>\n
“We’ve got 1,450 detention officers and we’re down about 10%, and so every once in a while something happens, but for the safety of not only others in custody, but the safety of our workforce, I mean they’re alert as they can be. It happens,” said Price. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An inmate arrested for trespassing and possession of a controlled substance is now facing murder charges after allegedly…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":88156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,7290,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-88155","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-county","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-tx","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114907247256697691","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88155","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=88155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}