Thirty-eight-year-old Tyler Jay Huffman died in Austin, Texas, at Tarrant County Jail on September 10, 2021. Mr. Huffman was booked into the jail five days earlier. Results of an autopsy are pending, and the custodial death report shows that a particular Texas Department of Public Safety Ranger was appointed to investigate the death.

Many deaths in county jails in Texas are believed to have been preventable. A report was prepared by a watchdog group in which the allegedly preventable deaths of many mentally ill inmates were examined. The specific cases cited in the report include mentally disturbed inmates who died from:

• Severe withdrawal seizures that allegedly resulted from an abrupt withdrawal from the provision of prescribed medication; 
• Suicide allegedly resulting from a failure to provide proper monitoring;
• Suicide after suicidal statements were allegedly ignored, resulting in the inmate not being placed in a suicide-resistant cell;
• Suicide after county jail staff members failed to notify a magistrate about the potentially suicidal inmate who was suffering from mental health problems;
• An injury sustained while suffering from allegedly untreated alcohol withdrawals;
• A bacterial infection that occurred after an alleged failure to provide adequate medical care;
• Severe seizures resulting from unsupported withdrawal after the jail allegedly denied the inmate his prescription anxiety medication; and
• Suicide in a case in which the magistrate who was notified of the inmate’s mental illness took no action.

Learn more in this ongoing series. 

Making implications of misdeeds on the part of persons or entities is never an intention on this website. The purpose of posts on this site is to help inmates detained in county jails in Texas, whether currently or previously incarcerated.

–Guest Contributor