The Tarrant County Democratic Party started the new year with a protest over deaths in the Tarrant County Jail, which have spiked under Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn.
Since Waybourn took office in 2017, nearly 70 people have died in the county’s care, some under allegations of neglect and abuse.
Two fired jailers face murder charges in one death. Anthony Johnson Jr. died of asphyxiation after jailers pepper sprayed him, and one knelt on his back, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office and video of the incident.
About 60 people gathered Friday evening on the street below the jail, which towers over downtown Fort Worth. They called for Waybourn’s resignation. And they waved signs at passing cars that said “Sheriff of Shame” and “69+ Deaths = Mass Murder.”
Democratic County Commissioner Alisa Simmons spoke at the protest Friday. She’s previously called for Waybourn’s resignation.
“Y'all might as well plan the next rally,” she said. “Because it's going to happen again.”
She encouraged attendees to keep speaking at Tarrant County Commissioners Court meetings. She also said she plans to ask for a public briefing about the two people who died in jail custody in December.
Waybourn has blamed the increase in deaths on people’s preexisting health problems. There’s not much he can do about someone who gets arrested and sent to jail when they have stage-four cancer, he’s argued.
As for deaths like Anthony Johnson Jr.’s, the jailers involved are being held accountable, he told KERA and the Fort Worth Report last year.
“We’re going to have isolated incidents where things go bad, where officers do wrong, because we still have human beings behind that badge,” he said. “We’ll never, ever get away from that. But all we can do is train better. To try to raise our standards, to try to see where our weaknesses are and improve on them and hold people accountable to those standards in which we set.”
The latest to die was 31-year-old Mason Andrew Yancy, who "experienced a medical emergency” on Dec. 27, according to a press release from the sheriff’s office. His cause of death is not yet known, pending autopsy results.
Some people joined the protest holding signs with photos of him. One of them showed a bearded man smiling as he took a selfie, wearing a cowboy hat, colorful tie and suspenders.
Whytney Blythe said she met Yancy through the world of activism – he was a proponent of open carry gun policies. She teared up as she remembered her friend, who she called a “puppy dog” and a hopeless romantic.
“He was an incredible friend. He was doting, loving. Everybody that knew him and came into contact with him couldn't help but be his friend," she said.
Daniel Wood advocated for Second Amendment rights alongside Yancy, he told KERA. His friend’s death pushed him to research more about the jail, and he learned about other deaths.
“They're literally dependent on the people who are in charge, and they're dying over senseless, needless things,” Wood said. “And it needs to stop.”
Wood and others created a Facebook event to get people to attend the next Tarrant County Commissioners Court meeting and demand answers about Yancy’s death. The Libertarian Party of Texas is helping to spread the word on social media.
“We want to show up in numbers and let them know we are serious about why another person is dead in their care,” the event description reads. “Mason was always good at bringing people together, now we unite FOR him!”
Lawsuits alleging mistreatment and neglect inside the jail have cost the county more than $4.3 million.
That number is just the lawsuit payouts. It doesn’t include the cost of hiring lawyers to defend jailers accused of wrongdoing.
The latest settlement went to the family of Kelly Masten, a woman with intellectual disabilities and a severe seizure disorder, who needed to be put in a medically induced coma after being left to seize alone in a metal-and-concrete jail cell, the lawsuit alleged.
The biggest settlement in county history, $1.2 million, went to Chasity Congious, who gave birth unattended in a Tarrant County jail cell in 2020. Her baby, Zenorah, died days after birth.
Other lawsuits, including one from Johnson’s family, are pending.
Got a tip? Email Miranda Suarez at msuarez@kera.org. You can follow Miranda on Twitter @MirandaRSuarez.
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