Houston Inmate Dies While In Custody

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On March 7, 2008, the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Dept. of Justice (DOJ) notified Harris County officials that it would be investigating conditions at the jail. The investigation resulted in a June 4, 2009 report that acknowledged “In many ways, the Jail actually performs quite well.” However, the 24-page report also concluded that “certain conditions at the Jail violate the constitutional rights of detainees.” The DOJ said the “number of inmates deaths related to inadequate medical care ... is alarming,” and found the jail had failed to provide prisoners with adequate medical and mental health care, protection from serious physical harm, and protection from “life safety hazards.”

The report detailed a number of deficiencies in medical care by Harris County jail staff that resulted in prisoner deaths; the DOJ investigators also stated they had “serious concerns about the use of force at the Jail,” which was described as “flawed.” The report noted that jail officials did “not train staff that hogtying and choke holds are dangerous, prohibited practices.”

Additionally, the DOJ cited overcrowding problems at the jail and observed that the Texas Jail Commission had granted waivers to allow Harris County to house 2,000 more prisoners than the facility’s original design capacity. The county has had to send hundreds of jail detainees to Louisiana to relieve overcrowded conditions, at a cost of $9 million a year. [See: PLN, Oct. 2008, p.28].

Overcrowding has exacerbated a number of other problems at the jail, including access to medical care and the ability of staff to ensure prisoners’ safety. In the latter regard, the DOJ stated that “in one recent ten month period, the Jail reported over 3,000 fights and 17 reported sexual assaults.” At least 500 pretrial detainees at the jail have been incarcerated for over a year, which contributes to the overcrowding problem. The Harris County jail system holds over 11,000 prisoners.

In an unrelated investigation, Houston’s city jails were found to be deficient, too. In a May 26, 2009 report, a court-appointed inspector found “filthy” conditions at the city jails and recommended that Houston build new detention facilities “with all due speed.” After visiting one of the jails earlier this year, City Councilwoman Jolanda Jones called it “inhumane” and said prisoners were “being forced to live in subhuman conditions.”

Houston’s jails have been under a court-enforced consent decree resulting from a class-action suit filed in 1989, which requires quarterly inspections. The inspector, David Bogard, cited problems with the use of interlocking restraints on prisoners, an inadequate investigation into a prisoner’s death, delays before arrestees were arraigned, and delays in follow-up medical care.

“We’re doing the best we can,” said Houston Police Captain Doug Perry, who is in charge of the city’s jail division. Apparently, though, those best efforts have not been good enough.

Other Texas Jails Also Problematic

In all fairness, Houston does not have the only jails in Texas with serious shortcomings. In 2004, inspectors determined that the Dallas County Jail was dangerously short of smoke detectors and emergency ventilation systems. The facility had also failed every state inspection for years. [See: PLN, Nov. 2007, p.14]. So it was major news when jail officials finally began to install smoke detectors four years later, in June 2008.

It was only after a prisoner in a holding cell at the Nueces County Courthouse tampered with the plumbing and flooded a courtroom floor in May 2008 that state inspectors even realized prisoners were being held there. The following month, a female detainee tried to commit suicide in one of the holding cells. It had been decades since the cells were inspected, and the Texas Commission on Jail Standards admitted it “was not aware there were holding cells being utilized in the courthouse.”

In Montague County, the sheriff and ten guards were indicted on Feb. 27, 2009 following an FBI investigation into sexual misconduct and contraband smuggling at the county jail, which was compared to the rowdy fraternity in “Animal House.” [See: PLN, Sept. 2009, p.40; May 2009, p.1].

In June 2008, Rodney George Cole II, a guard at the Jefferson County Jail in Beaumont, was sentenced to one year on probation and a $4,000 fine for assaulting prisoner Joseph Christopher Roberts. A video caught Cole hitting Roberts four times in the face, injuring his mouth.

When Roberts spit blood onto some jail paperwork, another Jefferson County guard, Johnny Lynn Vickery, Jr., threw him against a wall and smeared the bloody papers across his head and face. Vickery received a $4,000 fine but no jail time or probation. At the time of the incident, Roberts was being held for unpaid parking tickets.

Adrienne Lemons, incarcerated at the Tarrant County Jail in Fort Worth, died on June 13, 2008 after being denied medication for an aggressive staph infection. Lemons had been diagnosed with Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) while at the Dallas County Jail. She received four days’ worth of medication before she was transferred. When she arrived at Tarrant County, her paperwork indicated that she needed six more days of medication. She never received it.

When the pain from the MRSA infection became too much to bear, Lemons became suicidal. Jail staff placed her in segregation but did not check to see why she was in pain, which would have revealed her need for medical treatment. She died within hours after being taken to a local hospital.

The Tarrant County medical examiner determined that Lemons’ death was caused by a “rapid and catastrophic” infection from “flesh-eating” pneumonia and septic shock. Doctors responsible for medical care at the jail insisted that Lemons had never informed them she was on medication. They also agreed that she probably would have lived had she received the additional six days of antibiotics. Like Roberts, Lemons had been arrested for unpaid parking tickets.

“It is a tragic thing that my sister goes in for some traffic tickets and comes out dead,” said Lemons’ brother, Shannon Woodrome. “I can see an infection killing someone in the 1600s or the 1700s, but that shouldn’t happen today.”

The More Things Don’t Change

Harris County has made efforts to improve its jail system following the release of the DOJ’s report last June – though such efforts were likely motivated, at least in part, by a desire to avoid a lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Justice. “We have been making, are making and will continue to make improvements to the way we operate at every level,” said Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia.

The jail passed a surprise inspection by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards in late July 2009, after failing an April inspection due to overcrowding, malfunctioning intercoms and broken toilets. Harris County has also appointed a former district judge as its “jail czar” to act as a liaison between the jail and court systems.

Yet county officials remain in denial over the seriousness of the problems in their jails. On August 25, 2009, the County Attorney’s office released a 300-page rebuttal to the DOJ report, arguing that “At no time ... has the jail not met constitutional standards.” The County Attorney noted that million of dollars had been spent to computerize prisoners’ medical records since the DOJ’s inspection, and said “At the least, the jail system of the past and present meets minimal standards.”

County Judge Ed Emmett opined that the DOJ report was “fairly positive .... It has some episodic events but it does not show a pattern of problems.” Which is, of course, a very optimistic – and entirely incorrect – interpretation of the findings made by the DOJ, which said it could sue the county if improvements were not made.

Meanwhile, Harris County jail prisoners continue to die. On August 18, 2009, prisoner Daniel Aguirre, 20, fell into a coma and died after he was reportedly involved in several altercations with jail staff. His family has claimed he was “beat up by a jailer three times” and had his head slammed against a wall. An investigation is pending.

Year after year, PLN has reported on the abysmal conditions in Texas jails. Time and again there have been empty promises of change from local leaders. Yet the number of deaths and the extent of abuse in jails in the Lone Star State continue to increase. Each new administration inherits the apathy of its predecessor, and Texas citizens unfortunate enough to find themselves in jail continue to pay a high price – up to and including their lives.

Sources: Associated Press, Beaumont Enterprise, Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, www.houstonpress.com, www.kristv.com,KTRK-TV Houston, www.rawstory.com, http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com