A Texas County Jail Inmate Dies from Suicide While on Suicide Watch

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) includes suicide prevention measures in operational requirements for local Texas jails. Because special measures include heightened supervision, it is important for jails to have sufficient staff to carry out frequent face-to-face observations of at-risk inmates.

Often tragically, jails frequently lack the required level of staffing to carry out these crucial requirements. Such was allegedly the case in March 2022 when a suicidal 61-year-old Texas county jail inmate used a razor blade to cut his neck and cause substantial bleeding before deputies saw what was happening. The inmate died in the ambulance he was placed in by paramedics and was transported to the county’s medical examiner’s office instead of a hospital, as originally intended.

Investigators claim that, after the inmate was found in a pool of blood, it was another 25 minutes before he was placed in the ambulance. The same source brought to light that staffing shortages at the jail are ongoing. In addition, a few weeks prior to the death, the jail had been cited for failing to provide adequate supervision to mental health inmates.

Learn more in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, and Part 8 of this ongoing series.

Helping Texas inmates incarcerated in municipal and county jails is the purpose of this website. There is never an intention on this site of making insinuations of involvement in wrongdoing against people or entities.

–Guest Contributor