Officers with the Roanoke Police Department in Roanoke, Texas, placed John Allen Ellingwood in double-locked handcuffs on October 8, 2020. Before he was booked into jail, he appeared to be having an overdose. Medics were called, Mr. Ellingwood was released from custody, and he was taken to a nearby hospital where he died on November 14, 2020 

There has been a history of undercounting the number of lives lost in county jails. This conclusion was arrived at when a Texas Commission on Jail Standards’ Self Evaluation Report was scrutinized. The number of deaths in Texas jails had been in the public spotlight, and a strategy for lowering the number of custodial deaths became evident. Investigations on jail deaths revealed that on multiple occasions inmates in medical crisis were released from custody shortly before dying.

Abuse at the hands of jail guards was allegedly a factor in the death of one jail inmate whose story is told in detail in the expose on jail deaths. The inmate became belligerent because a family member visiting him was background-checked and an old criminal charge showed up. The family member was arrested, and the inmate ultimately struck one officer on the forehead and another on the nose. Witnesses say that he was tackled and pinned to the floor by three guards. A fourth guard held the man down with a knee in his back, and a fifth guard shocked the inmate with a stun gun. Ten minutes later, a nurse checked on the inmate and found that he was bloodied and had no pulse. Within hours, the inmate was pronounced dead and the family member who had been taken away in handcuffs had been released by officials.

See Part 1 and this ongoing series.

Suggesting that an individual or organization has been a participant in any type of wrongdoing is never intended on this website. Helping county jail inmates in Texas is the purpose of this site’s posts.

–Guest Contributor