Category: Medical Care

Officers with the Roanoke Police Department in Roanoke, Texas, placed John Allen Ellingwood in double-locked handcuffs on October 8, 2020. Before he was booked into jail, he appeared to be having an overdose. Medics were called, Mr. Ellingwood was released from custody, and he was taken to a nearby hospital where he died on November 14, 2020 

There has been a history of undercounting the number of lives lost in county jails. This conclusion was arrived at when a Texas Commission on Jail Standards’ Self Evaluation Report was scrutinized. The number of deaths in Texas jails had been in the public spotlight, and a strategy for lowering the number of custodial deaths became evident. Investigations on jail deaths revealed that on multiple occasions inmates in medical crisis were released from custody shortly before dying.

Abuse at the hands of jail guards was allegedly a factor in the death of one jail inmate whose story is told in detail in the expose on jail deaths. The inmate became belligerent because a family member visiting him was background-checked and an old criminal charge showed up. The family member was arrested, and the inmate ultimately struck one officer on the forehead and another on the nose. Witnesses say that he was tackled and pinned to the floor by three guards. A fourth guard held the man down with a knee in his back, and a fifth guard shocked the inmate with a stun gun. Ten minutes later, a nurse checked on the inmate and found that he was bloodied and had no pulse. Within hours, the inmate was pronounced dead and the family member who had been taken away in handcuffs had been released by officials.

See Part 1 and this ongoing series.

Suggesting that an individual or organization has been a participant in any type of wrongdoing is never intended on this website. Helping county jail inmates in Texas is the purpose of this site’s posts.

–Guest Contributor 

The Winkler County Jail, known as the Winkler County Detention Center, in Kermit, Texas, is now listed as being non-compliant with the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. The Texas Commission on Jail Standards conducted an inspection of the jail on December 10, 2021. The inspector found, from our perspective, a serious violation.

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards sets forth minimum jail standards for Texas county jails. The Winkler County Jail, according to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards inspector, did not conduct training for 12 of its 16 jailers during calendar year 2021. This was particularly troubling, because suicide prevention training was an item of technical assistance during the year 2020 annual inspection. Training was last completed for those 12 jailers in November 2020.

A minimum jail standard in Texas requires each sheriff or jail operator to develop and implement a mental disability/suicide prevention plan in coordination with available medical and mental health officials. The plan shall address certain principles and procedures, including having provisions for staff training. This training must be on procedures for recognition, documentation, supervision, and handling of inmates who are mentally disabled and/or potentially suicidal.

Hopefully, Winkler County’s failure to train its jailers did not lead to any serious injury or death. Our Texas civil rights law firm frequently sues counties as a result of occurrences in their jails. Unfortunately, many such occurrences conclude in death. There are still far too many suicides occurring in Texas county jails. We also far too frequently see denial of medical care or provision of medical care that is so inadequate as to really constitute denial.

If a person dies in a Texas county jail as a result of neglect, indifference, and/or clearly unreasonable policies, practices, and/or customs, then certain surviving family members may be able to file a lawsuit. These lawsuits against Texas jails are usually filed in federal court, because guarantees to Texas prisoners are pursuant to the United States Constitution.

John Allen Ellingwood was in the custody of the Roanoke, Texas, police department when he died on October 14th, 2020, at the age of 46. According to the custodial death report on Mr. Ellingwood, the medical cause of death was the ingestion of methamphetamine.

A major Texas magazine published an article in recent days that reflects conclusions made from the investigation of deaths in Texas jails. Within the title of the piece is a statement suggesting that dying in Texas jails is common or is practically expected. 

The death of a 27-year-old man was touched upon in the story, and it shows that “sudden cardiac death during restraint procedures” was the cause of death. The custodial death report on the inmate, which was prepared by a Texas county sheriff’s department, shows the same but also adds various contributing conditions, including morbid obesity, schizophrenia, cardiomegaly, and substance abuse. 

The journalists who contributed to the article used information from 400 Texas Ranger investigations into county jail fatalities in the state. The following are some of the conditions that were frequently found in the records:

• Inmates suffering from liver failure are provided with Tylenol.
• Inmates reportedly moaning in pain are routinely mocked.
• Inmates suffering from mental health crises are violently restrained.
• Treatments for chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes are routinely denied.

In the study of dozens of deaths that were reviewed by the magazine staff, it was discovered that contributing factors seemed to be that jail staff members actively ignored evidence of serious health deterioration or pleas for help. 

Learn more in this ongoing series.

Implying that a person or entity has been engaged in wrongdoing is never intended on this website. Each post is intended as a helpful resource for inmates now or previously incarcerated in a county jail in Texas.

–Guest Contributor 

Christa Kay Markwell was shot by a Lubbock, Texas, police officer on November 15, 2020, after advancing toward police while holding a hatchet. The custodial death report prepared by the Lubbock Police Department shows that Ms. Markwell was transported to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

One of several controversial Texas police shootings in a particular Texas county resulted in the death of a 42-year-old man. A newspaper account described what happened and a summary follows: 

• The 42-year-old suspect was holding a gun to a woman’s head as they sat in a parked car. The suspect, at one point, stepped out of the vehicle. He then got back into his car and began to drive. Nearby officers fired into the suspect’s car. The suspect was killed, and no gun was found in his vehicle. One of the officers stated that his fear was that the car would be used as a deadly weapon against other officers. The woman in the story apparently escaped the scene safely.

A few months later in the same police department, two officers were involved in the deadly shooting of a man in a mental health crisis who was holding a knife.

In that county in 2019, the following describes another event that, like the others, did not result in any convictions or punishment of police officers for misconduct:

• A 40-year-old suspect fled from police on foot after crashing his vehicle. An officer engaged his taser. The suspect, who was allegedly repeatedly shocked, insisted that he could not breathe. He died in the encounter.

See Part 1 and Part 2 to learn more.

Suggesting that any persons or entities have engaged in wrongdoing is never intended on this website. Helping inmates detained in county jails in Texas is the purpose of posts on this site.

–Guest Contributor

A custodial death report on Christa Kay Markwell shows that she died at the hands of Lubbock, Texas, police on November 15, 2020. Reportedly, Ms. Markwell had called the police to report criminal mischief in her apartment complex. When officers arrived, they noticed that she was armed with a hatchet, ultimately leading to her being shot in an act of self-defense due to non-compliance.

Many questions come up on occasions when citizens die as a result of police shootings. In Texas recently, police officers approached a 22-year-old man about a felony warrant. Newspaper accounts say that the man ran away from the police and was shot in the back. A gun at the scene was found near the suspect, according to witnesses at the scene. The deceased’s family urges that anyone who has their back to the police is defenseless.

One U.S. police department outside of Texas has suggested changing department policy for the purpose of reducing the number of homicides. “Shoot to incapacitate” is an approach being discussed, but this does not change the deadly force policy already in place. Rather, the chief of that department suggests that the body parts aimed at should be changed. Instead of targeting a person’s “center mass,” shoot at the pelvis, abdomen, or legs, when possible. Training is ensuing along those lines. 

See Part 1 and this ongoing series.

There is at no time any intention on this website to make an implication of wrongdoing having occurred on the part of any persons or institutions. Posts are added here to assist prisoners now or previously detained in a Texas county jail.

–Guest Contributor

Christa Kay Markwell died in Lubbock, Texas, on November 15, 2020, following an encounter with the Lubbock police. The manner of death is listed as homicide (including justifiable homicide). The custodial death report also shows that law enforcement personnel caused the pre-custodial death.

A recent article in a major newspaper in the US claims that 910 people have died in police shootings in the last year. The newspaper has been keeping a log of every fatal police shooting in the nation. They began keeping the record after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

The data collected by the newspaper relies primarily on police reports, news accounts, and postings in social media. Over the course of five years, the data collected shows consistency in the number of fatal police shootings, the circumstances surrounding the shootings, and the overall demographics of the victims.

Although unpredictable events result in fatal police shootings, every year about 1,000 people are killed by the police. The report prepared by the newspaper shows that about 50% of the people shot by police are Caucasian, but black Americans are shot at an unequal rate. Although black Americans make up less than 13% of the US population, they are killed by police at more than twice the rate of Caucasians. They assert that Hispanic Americans are killed at an unequal rate, as well.

Learn more in this ongoing series.

Suggesting that a person or organization has been participating in wrongdoing is never intended on this website. The intent of posts on this site is to help inmates now or formerly incarcerated in a county jail in the state of Texas.

–Guest Contributor

Donald Oscar Cruz was incarcerated at Nueces County Jail when he was discovered unresponsive in his bunk on November 18th, 2020. Emergency life-saving measures quickly began, but Mr. Cruz did not respond. He was pronounced dead that same evening. 

A jail inspection report dated May 21, 2021, cited non-compliance on RULE §273.5 (a)(1), and the rule was also mentioned in Part 2 of this series.

Non-Compliance Regarding Suicide Prevention Training

• A TCJS inspector noted that the administration of a Texas county jail could not provide rosters or certificates related to suicide training when it was requested. There was no verification showing that suicide prevention training had been provided in accordance with the approved operational plan for the jail. 

Training is essential because preventing inmates from harming themselves, including committing suicide, is the largest legal and ethical obligation of correctional facilities, according to reports on the topic. Although people often consider suicide to be an issue for mental health professionals to handle, that is not exactly right. The reality is that most suicides occur in facility housing units when inmates are not in programs. The heaviest burden for identifying, monitoring, and responding to suicidal behaviors in correctional facilities falls to the correctional staff. 

Learn more in Part 1 and Part 2 of this three-part series.

Making an implication of wrongdoing on the part of a person or organization is never intended on this website. Helping county jail inmates throughout Texas, whether they are now or formerly incarcerated, is the purpose of each post.

–Guest Contributor

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) recently had to remind all sheriffs and jail administrators in Texas of the apparent continued, inhumane problem of restraining pregnant inmates. It is important to remember that the vast majority of people in Texas county jails have not yet been convicted of anything. Therefore, they certainly cannot be punished, much less restrained improperly if they are pregnant.

The TCJS issued a technical assistance memorandum on December 15, 2021 entitled, “Reminder: Report on Restraint of Pregnant Inmates.” The TCJS had to remind all jails in Texas of the requirement to document and report use of restraints on pregnant inmates. A Texas law requires the TCJS to adopt minimum jail standards regarding use of restraints on pregnant inmates. Information about standards adopted by the TCJS was distributed to all jails via a technical assistance memorandum on December 4, 2019, and again on December 4, 2020. The TCJS’s December 15, 2021 memorandum provided links to both previous technical assistance memorandums.

Each Texas jail is required to submit a report for the preceding year no later than February 1st of a year. A jail can begin submitting reports on January 1st of a year to Program Specialist Kaitlin Lopez Cano, and her email address is provided in the 2021 technical assistance memorandum. The report must be submitted using a Microsoft Excel file that is at the TCJS website, and for which the TCJS provided a link. If a jail submits the report in any other format, it will be returned. If a jail did not use restraints on pregnant inmates during the preceding year, the jail still has to submit a report.

It is unfortunate in a civilized society that jails use restraints on pregnant inmates. Fortunately, the Texas legislature addressed the issue. Jail administrators and sheriffs in Texas must assure that they treat all prisoners humanely, pregnant or otherwise, as such prisoners receive constitutional protections.

Donald Oscar Cruz was booked into Nueces County Jail in Corpus Christi, Texas, on November 13, 2020. He died five days later on November 18, 2020. Mr. Cruz was 48 years old at the time of his death.

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) requires county jails in the state to ensure that the mandated number of jail staff members are in the jail 24/7. A recent jail inspection report that revealed non-compliance at a Texas county jail included a note from the TCJS inspector. He commented on the heightened level of inmate hostility and tension in that jail system. Based on what he saw during the course of the inspection process and a review of Serious Incident Reports, he concluded that there was an ongoing lack of sufficient staffing. The reports on serious incidents revealed that, between 2020 and 2021 numbers, inmate assaults increased.

Jail staff members must not only be present but they must be trained. Many inmates are at risk, and suicide is one of the biggest threats. Suicide is the leading cause of inmate deaths when county jails are considered across the US.  The following are details of suicide training non-compliance at a Texas county jail in a jail inspection report dated September 27th, 2021.

Mental Disabilities/Suicide Prevention Plan – Training

Rule §273.5 (1) under Health Services in the Texas Administrative Code states that each county jail must develop and implement a suicide prevention and mental disabilities plan that includes training. Jail staff members must know how to recognize, supervise, document, and handle potentially suicidal and mentally disabled prisoners.

The inspector with TCJS found that suicide prevention training for jail staff members had not been conducted within the past year, which would have been in accordance with the facility operational plan.

Learn more in Part 1 and this continuing series.

It is never intended on this website to suggest that an individual or institution has participated in wrongs. Each post is purposed as a potential benefit to county jail inmates in Texas, whether currently or previously incarcerated.

–Guest Contributor

The Cass County jail, in Linden, Texas, failed an inspection with the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, (TCJS). The TCJS inspection occurred on December 2, 2021. The Cass County jail is now listed as being non-compliant with the TCJS.

The TCJS inspector found that the Cass County jail violated one minimum jail standard. The inspector determined, after reviewing documentation provided to him by the Cass County jail, that inmates were not being allowed one hour of supervised recreation at least three days per week. The inspector also noted that this was a repeat deficiency at the Cass County jail. Hopefully, the jail will bring itself into compliance with state standards.