Tarrant County and several jailers should be added back to the wrongful death lawsuit of Anthony Johnson, Jr. over their failure to provide him adequate medical and mental health assistance, an attorney for the Johnsons argued Tuesday.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments from the Johnsons’ attorney and Tarrant County’s attorney.
Johnson died at the Tarrant County Jail in April 2024. A group of detention officers surrounded Johnson after a confrontation in his cell, partially released footage recorded by Lt. Joel Garcia on his phone showed.
Johnson ended up in handcuffs lying face down on the ground before an officer pepper sprayed him in the face. Another officer, Rafael Moreno, kneeled on his back for more than a minute while Johnson could be heard saying he couldn’t breathe.
Johnson died by homicide by asphyxiation, the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled. Johnson’s parents sued them and 13 other jailers along with Tarrant County, for their son's wrongful death later that year.
Thad Spalding, an attorney representing the Johnsons, told judges Tuesday the dismissed jailers should be held responsible because they failed to provide Johnson with medical care after seeing his condition following the altercation.
“They were present, they saw the condition, they saw what had happened to Anthony Johnson (Jr.), they saw the condition that he was in immediately after these events and they did not provide him any medical care,” Spalding said.
A judge dismissed the claims against Tarrant County and several of the named jailers in February 2025 after ruling the lawsuit failed to prove that Tarrant County’s policies and procedures led to Johnson’s death and did not prove that six of the jailers were responsible for Johnson’s death. The Johnsons appealed that decision and the county maintains it's not responsible for his death.
Spalding argued it’s difficult to confirm what the jailers did in the moments after Johnson was pulled off the ground as he has never seen the full video footage. Only five minutes of the 15 minutes video has been publicly released, Spalding said.
Spalding also alleged there is no training or policies from Tarrant County on how officers should handle inmates that are suffering from a mental illness, pointing to at least 60 other jail deaths that occurred before Johnson’s.
“Because he was in the general population floor, these officers were not capable of dealing with him, made no effort to deal with a mentally ill patient and just treated him like anybody else,” Spalding said.
Chief Judge Jennifer Elrod questioned what the jail’s mental health policy has to do with the alleged excessive force that was used.
“It's my understanding in a large urban jail that every jailer goes and sits through these meetings where they say, ‘we got a lot of mental health people here and we've got to be sensitive to that, and they might not be, they might be slow to respond sometimes because they're not processing.’ And you got to work with that,” Elrod said.
Katherine Owens, an assistant criminal district attorney for Tarrant County, told judges Tuesday while this is a “sad case,” the county isn’t liable for Johnson’s death because it was caused by the “error of individuals,” not from jail conditions.
Owens also said the Johnsons have not proved there is repeated pattern or lack of policies within the jail causing previous custody deaths.
“Nothing like the death of Anthony Johnson, Jr. has ever occurred within the Tarrant County jail,” Owens said.
There’s been nearly 80 Tarrant County jail deaths since 2017 when Sheriff Bill Waybourn took office, including an inmate named Derick Wynn. A jailer at the time knelt on his back while in handcuffs and became unconscious soon after, according to his death investigation records. Wynn's death was blamed on drugs, but a KERA News investigation raised questions about his treatment during his nine hours in custody before his death.
Owens told judges the argument that jailers did nothing to aid Johnson after the incident is unfair because two jailers put him in a wheelchair and that “shows that something was done at that point in time.”
Additionally, Owens argued the Johnsons’ attorneys did not follow proper protocol when filing changes and new complaints to the suit in the past, including that Johnson had the right to be placed in a different part of the jail due to his schizophrenia.
“Because they didn't follow the rules when they asked for leave to amend, they shouldn't be given a second bite at the apple now,” Owens told judges.
Attorneys for the dismissed jailers were also present and given a minute each to speak on their behalf — all of which told judges they were not liable for Johnson’s death.
The county has spent at least $635,000 in legal fees to represent itself and jailers named in the suit since 2024.
Garcia, the officer who recorded the video and Moreno, who kneeled on Johnson’s back, were fired in May 2024 and were indicted for murder in June 2024. They have a pretrial set for next month.
Penelope Rivera is KERA's Tarrant County Accountability Reporter. Got a tip? Email Penelope at privera@kera.org .
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