The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office has hired a new jail administrator, the person in charge of day-to-day operations in the local jail system, according to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS).
Shannon Herklotz was most recently a chief deputy of detention services at the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office, according to his LinkedIn page. Before that, he ran the Harris County Jail. He spent the longest stretch of his career — more than 20 years — at TCJS, the state agency that inspects jails.
Herklotz is now taking over management of a jail that’s been under scrutiny for years, over deaths behind bars and alleged mistreatment of incarcerated people.
TCJS Executive Director Brandon Wood and Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price confirmed Herklotz’s move to Tarrant County, which has not yet been announced by the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office.
KERA has reached out to the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office for comment.
Herklotz leaves the Dallas County Jail better than he found it, Price told KERA Thursday.
"He understands all of the intricacies of the rules of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards,” he said. “And he got a chance to come in pretty much with a blank sheet of paper and get us correct.”
Price wanted the chance to keep Herklotz, but Dallas County couldn’t match the compensation package Tarrant County was offering, he said.
“They understand that they're in trouble,” he said.
The number of deaths in Tarrant County Jail custody spiked under Sheriff Bill Waybourn, who took office in 2017. Almost 70 people have died in county custody since then, as well as a baby who died 10 days after her mother gave birth unattended in her cell. Since 2022, the county has paid out more than $4.3 million in lawsuits alleging abuse of prisoners and medical neglect.
The previous Tarrant County Jail chief, Charles Eckert, retired in May, shortly after the death of Anthony Johnson Jr. Johnson died after jailers pepper-sprayed him, and one knelt on his back.
Two jailers face murder charges in Johnson’s death, which the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled a homicide by asphyxiation. Eckert denied his retirement came in response to recent jail deaths.
Herklotz previously ran the Harris County Jail, which has its own problems with in-custody deaths. He resigned from that job in January 2023, after 2022 saw a record number of deaths, according to Houston Public Media.
He wrote in his resignation letter, addressed to Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, that during his tenure he had to deal with the COVID pandemic, staffing shortages, and a large felony case backlog.
“While I pushed myself to new limits, the results were not always what I/we expected. I have no regrets and there is very little that I would change. However, I feel that you and [Chief Deputy Mike Lee] want to move in a new direction and I do not feel as I have a place in that vision,” Herklotz wrote.
Counties like to hire people who worked for TCJS because of their experience with jails across the state, Wood said in an interview Wednesday.
TCJS inspects jails and can issue notices of noncompliance if they don’t pass.
Even though Herklotz used to work for TCJS, he was issued notices of noncompliance when he ran the Harris County Jail, and that could happen again if need be, Wood said.
"People have a tendency to say, ‘Oh, well, you know, it's the good old boy system, and they'll give him a pass.’ That's not really how it works," Wood said.
In October, news broke that the Tarrant County Sheriff's Office did not get outside investigations of more than 20 deaths in custody — an apparent violation of state law.
The sheriff's office maintains it followed the rules. It allowed the Fort Worth Police Department to review the investigations the sheriff's office performed itself, a sheriff's office spokesperson told KERA and the Fort Worth Report.
Krish Gundu, cofounder of the advocacy organization Texas Jail Project, hopes Herklotz will get proper independent investigations into jail deaths, she told KERA.
"Given his extensive history and experience working at the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, we are really hopeful that the Tarrant County Jail will do a much better job of interpreting state laws," she said.
This story has been updated with comment from Krish Gundu.
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