According to the custodial death report (CDR) about him, when 44-year-old Emmitt Earl Byrd was booked into Bexar County Jail on April 17, 2022, no suicidal statements were made and he did not seem to exhibit any mental health problems. He was placed in a single cell in the San Antonio, Texas, jail and on April 21, 2022, died after hanging himself with a sheet.

Bexar County Jail is Cited for Non-Compliance with Inmate Observation Requirements

In the inspection report dated February 19-22, 2019, inspectors with the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) issued citations for violating the following two standards:

RULE §275.1 – Regular Observation by Jailers

The Bexar County Jail has established a procedure in which all inmates in the general population have supervision in the form of face-to-face observations in intervals that do not exceed every 60 minutes.

• Instead of observing inmates as required, the jail staff continually exceeded the 60-minute requirement by 1 to 126 minutes. This was determined via the observation logs.

RULE §273.5(a)(5) – Mental Disabilities/Suicide Prevention Plan – Supervision

The Bexar County Jail operational plan for the supervision of inmates that was approved state that the full suicide precautions include face-to-face observations of inmates at risk for suicide in intervals not to exceed every 15 minutes.

• The jail staff exceeded the required 15-minute observations continually, according to the observation logs.

See Part 1 and Part 2 of this ongoing series.

Implicating individuals or entities in acts of wrongdoing is not intended on this website. Posts on this site are added to provide helpful information for current and previous detainees in Texas county jails.

–Guest Contributor