Cynthia Garcia Dies After Being in Kleberg County, Texas Jail

The Kleberg County Sheriff’s Department, in Kingsville, Texas, filed a report regarding the custodial death of Cynthia Garcia. Ms. Garcia was only 32 years old at the time of her death. We provide in this post information we obtained from that report, and we make no allegation of any wrongdoing against anyone.

The report indicates that Ms. Garcia was originally in custody at the jail at 2:38 p.m. on March 31, 2022, and that she passed away on April 1, 2022 at 11:53 a.m. The report also indicates that at no time did Ms. Garcia physically attempt to or assault any police officers, verbally threaten any police officers, attempt to gain possession of any police officers’ weapons, resist arrest, or attempt to escape. The summary portion of the report reads in its entirety:

“Decedent was arrested for assaulting a nurse at the hospital where she was a patient for a drug overdose. She was brought to our facility and placed in the padded cell due to her previous suicide attempt. She was asleep and snoring loudly. The nurse heard the snoring stop so the nurse and an officer went to check on her and was found unresponsive. CPR was administered along with the AED. EMS was called and the decedent was transported to the hospital. She was later transported to another hospital in Corpus Christi where she later died.”

The United States Constitution guarantees the right of pretrial detainees, such as Ms. Garcia, to receive reasonable medical care. The report does not clarify whether Ms. Garcia was provided any additional medical care after her arrest, or whether alternate measures were taken to assure that she received medical care in a potentially intoxicated state.

The Constitution does not allow a jail to simply leave a person in a cell who has a serious medical condition, if that medical condition is known to jailers and/or others. The Constitution requires that jailers and others working in Texas county jails provide reasonable care to such inmates, and not be deliberately indifferent to their needs. If jailers or others who have custody over a person in a Texas jail are deliberately indifferent and/or act objectively unreasonably regarding known medical needs, and a person dies as a result, then certain surviving family members may be able to bring a lawsuit.

Written By: Dean Malone

Dean Malone

Dean Malone is the founder of Law Offices of Dean Malone, P.C., a jail neglect civil rights law firm. Mr. Malone earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Texas at Dallas, graduating summa cum laude with a 4.0 GPA, and from Baylor University School of Law with a general civil litigation concentration. Mr. Malone served in several staff positions for the Baylor Law Review, including executive editor. Mr. Malone is an experienced trial lawyer, trying a number of cases to jury verdict and also handling arbitrations through final hearing. He heads the jail neglect section of his law firm, in which lawyers litigate cases involving serious injury and death resulting from jail neglect and abuse. Lawyers frequently refer cases to Mr. Malone due to his focus on this very complicated civil rights practice area.