Regarding the inmate whose activities in jail before he committed suicide were shared in Part 1, his family has made claims against the public defender’s office and the health care company.

The public defender’s office is accused of failing to establish and implement procedures, policies, training, or practices that address mental health disorders among clients. Neither a social worker nor a mental health professional was involved in interactions with the inmate prior to his death.

The family also accuses the health care company of a failure to monitor the mental health of their loved one. They say that he was never provided with adequate treatment and his mental health issues were never alleviated. The necessary medication that may have prevented the suicide was never properly administered. And, finally, the family says that what their loved one needed was an adequate medical facility, which he was not given access to.

By failing to provide the inmate with safe conditions of confinement and with needed health care, they allegedly treated the man with deliberate indifference and negligence.

A 52-year-old man referred to as a transient died while he was in the booking area of that same county jail outside of Texas. It appeared that his death was related to complications of alcohol withdrawal, though the cause of death per the medical examiner is still unknown.

At that same county jail, two other inmates committed suicide during the 18-month period mentioned previously. Both hung themselves with bedsheets, the same as the man whose story is in the previous segment of this series.

See Part 1 and this continuing series. In the next installment, learn about another of the deaths in which family members are demanding answers.

The posts on this website are meant to assist current and former inmates in city and county jails in Texas and their families. It is never intended to suggest that any misdeeds have occurred on the part of a person or organization.

–Guest Contributor