The following continues the tragic story of an inmate’s death that occurred in a restraint chair in a county jail outside Texas:

The padded helmet was placed on the inmate’s head because he would not stop banging his head against the floor and wall, though he was instructed by jailers to stop. The inmate was also stripped naked. Officers can be seen in a surveillance video dragging the inmate across the cement floor of the jail and placing him in a solitary confinement cell.

Video surveillance inside the man’s cell shows that he crawled under the cot and later came out without the helmet on. His temple and head were blood-drenched. He was checked twice more in face-to-face observations during the next 13-minute period.

After another two minutes, the inmate was dragged from the cell and wrestled into a restraint chair. He was strapped down by the forearms, wrists, waist, chest, and ankles. The chair was chained to a column in the center of a cellblock that was surrounded by six cells.

Checks of the inmate were made every 15 minutes. The inmate thrashed with what appeared to be increasing distress before he finally collapsed against the chair. Life-saving measures were taken, and the inmate was transported to a nearby hospital. However, he was declared dead a few minutes later.

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) has approved of restraint chairs for use in jails in Texas counties. Yet, tragic stories such as this one are not unusual.

See Part 1 of this ongoing series to learn more.

This website’s purpose is never to infer that individuals or entities have participated in misdeeds. All posts are intended as resources for inmates currently or previously incarcerated in a Texas county jail.

–Guest Contributor