Wayne Joseph Dunlap Dies – City of Killeen, Texas Jail

The Killeen Police Department, in Texas, filed a report regarding the custodial death of Wayne Joseph Dunlap. Mr. Dunlap was 46 years old at the time of his death. We provide information we obtained from that report, and we make no allegation of any wrongdoing against anyone.

The summary portion of the report reads in its entirety:

“The suspect was arrested on 12/01/22 at 8:45 AM on multiple warrants from his residence at [Information Redacted], Bell County Texas. The arresting Officers transported the suspect to the Killeen Police Department City Jail. Later EMS responded to the jail for a suspect illness and they reported no emergency. A call for service was placed for a police officer to take the suspect to the hospital. Jailers entered the suspect’s cell and located him unresponsive, and he was later pronounced deceased.
Texas Rangers were notified and will conduct an external investigation.”

The report also indicates that Mr. Dunlap was originally in custody at 8:45 a.m. on December 1, 2022, and that he passed away on December 2, 2022. The report indicates, as to medical cause of death, that autopsy results are pending. The City of Killeen jail is in Bell County, Texas.

The report provides no information about how often, if at all, Mr. Dunlap was periodically observed by jailers or others working in the Killeen Jail. Unfortunately, municipal jails across Texas are not generally well-suited to handle inmates. Those jails are not governed by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS). The TCJS oversees county jails across Texas. Texas law requires jailers and county jails to be licensed and, after a temporary license ends and a permanent license is in place, to have appropriate training and education. This is not required of municipal jails, making them, in our opinion, an unsafe place to hold arrestees. For example, we are handling a case against the City of Jasper after the death of an arrestee in that jail. After the death, Jasper, Texas closed down its municipal jail.

The United States Constitution requires that arrestees and detainees in jails, or in police custody, receive reasonable medical care. If police officers, jailers, or EMS personnel are deliberately indifferent to serious medical needs, and a person dies as a result, then certain surviving family members may be able to file a federal civil rights lawsuit. Our jail neglect and abuse law firm is handling a number of such cases across Texas.

Written By: Dean Malone

Dean Malone

Dean Malone is the founder of Law Offices of Dean Malone, P.C., a jail neglect civil rights law firm. Mr. Malone earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Texas at Dallas, graduating summa cum laude with a 4.0 GPA, and from Baylor University School of Law with a general civil litigation concentration. Mr. Malone served in several staff positions for the Baylor Law Review, including executive editor. Mr. Malone is an experienced trial lawyer, trying a number of cases to jury verdict and also handling arbitrations through final hearing. He heads the jail neglect section of his law firm, in which lawyers litigate cases involving serious injury and death resulting from jail neglect and abuse. Lawyers frequently refer cases to Mr. Malone due to his focus on this very complicated civil rights practice area.