The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office in San Antonio, Texas, filed a custodial death report regarding Daniel Maldonado on March 3, 2022. Mr. Maldonado was booked into the Bexar County Jail on January 10, 2022. He died at age 31 in the custody of the jail on February 15, 2022. The cause of death is unknown and results of an autopsy are pending.

Jails have up to 30 days to file custodial death reports (CDRs). The death of Daniel Maldonado is the ninth in a Texas county jail in February 2022 revealed so far through the filing of a CDR.

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) provides operating requirements and oversight of county jails in Texas. Bexar County Jail was cited for noncompliance in 2019, and there was also a 2019 special jail inspection. The jail has passed all subsequent inspections in spite of numerous custodial deaths that have occurred there. Many recent deaths at Bexar County Jail were suicides.

As for the noncompliance of Bexar County Jail in 2019, a jail inspection report dated February 19-22, 2019, cites the jail for noncompliance with nine minimum jail standards. Several of the rules the jail allegedly violated directly contribute to the safety of inmates, including the following.

Bexar County is Noncompliant with Rule §273.5(a)(5)-Mental Disabilities/Suicide Prevention Plan

The supervision of inmates is crucial to their safety. For potentially suicidal and mentally ill inmates, supervision is heightened. Sheriffs or jail operators must implement a suicide prevention and mental disabilities plan and it must be developed in cooperation with available mental and medical health officials and approved by TCJS. That plan must include adequate supervision. The Bexar County operational plan that was approved by TCJS requires that potentially suicidal inmates must be observed in increments that do not exceed every 15 minutes.

In this continuing series, find out about the findings of TCJS inspectors in regard to various violations of minimum jail standards.

Intimating that a person or institution has been involved in nefarious acts is never intended on this site. Helping inmates housed in Texas county jails now or in the past is the purpose of posts on this site.

–Guest Contributor