Man Commits Suicide After Being Arrested by Port Isabel, Texas Police

iStock 969048466 — Interior of solitary confinement cell with metal bed desk and toilet in old prison

The Port Isabel Police Department, in Port Isabel, Texas, in Cameron County, filed a custodial death report with Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas. The report was regarding the death of Axel Hiram Gutierrez. Mr. Gutierrez was only 27 years of age at the time of his death. We provide information in this post which we obtained from that report. We make no allegation of any wrongdoing against related to Mr. Gutierrez’s death.

Mr. Gutierrez was pulled over by a Port Isabel police officer at approximately 2:29 a.m. on Thursday, September 26, 2019. He was allegedly pulled over for failing to signal and driving with his lights off. Mr. Gutierrez was ultimately extracted from his vehicle and arrested for suspicion of driving while intoxicated. He was then transported to the Port Isabel city jail at 305 East. Maxan Street, Port Isabel, Texas, 78578.

At approximately 4:03 a.m., a dispatcher got onto the radio and radioed to a sergeant and an officer that Mr. Gutierrez had taken off his shirt and was standing by the cell door. The dispatcher attempted to contact Mr. Gutierrez through the speaker in his cell, but Mr. Gutierrez did not respond.

The officer notified dispatch that he was on his way from an assault call. The officer arrived and ran to the jail section. He then observed Mr. Gutierrez hanging from the cell door using his own shirt. The officer began CPR, but he was unsuccessful. EMS arrived shortly thereafter and transported Mr. Gutierrez to Valley Regional Hospital. Mr. Gutierrez passed away on Saturday, September 28, 2019.

While we are not certain, we have learned through other civil rights cases handled by our Texas law firm that municipalities in Texas which have jails will sometimes not have officers on duty who can actually physically check on inmates in jail cells. Instead, some Texas cities will have only a dispatcher on duty, with all other on-duty officers on the street and handling calls. We have no idea as to whether Port Isabel had only one dispatcher-officer on duty at the jail at the time Mr. Gutierrez committed suicide. However, from the description in the custodial death report, it appears that the only officer on duty at the time might have been the dispatcher.

The dispatcher may or may not have been authorized to do something regarding Mr. Gutierrez. However, when a city or county chooses to have only officer on duty, we have found that procedures are often also that only one officer is not allowed to respond to an incident. These are just general observations from cases we have handled, and we once again are not certain as to what happened in Port Isabel. Further, to be clear, we are not alleging in this post that anyone did anything wrong with regard to Mr. Gutierrez’s death.

Generally, and without regard to what happened to Mr. Gutierrez, the 14^th Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees that pre-trial prisoners in Texas jails are entitled to be protected from themselves and others. This includes protecting inmates from committing suicide and/or being harmed by other inmates. If an inmate dies as a result of deliberate indifference and/or objective unreasonableness related to his or her mental health and/or general health issues, then jailers, cities, and/or counties may be liable pursuant to federal law. These cases are usually filed in federal court.

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