Tarrant County voters have elected a Republican to the county's highest law enforcement office for nearly 40 years. But as the clock ticks down to Nov. 5, incumbent Republican Sheriff Bill Waybourn is getting the most difficult questions he’s faced since first taking office in 2017.
More than 65 people have died in custody during Waybourn’s tenure. The sheriff’s primary job is to manage the jail — and the rising death toll has garnered fierce criticism from those who say new leadership is the only path forward. Over the last few months, Waybourn has fielded calls for his resignation from residents and a county commissioner. The incumbent and former Dalworthington Gardens police chief contends fixing problems in the jail is more complicated than people understand.
Democrat Patrick Moses, a retired federal law enforcement official and Fort Worth pastor, is Waybourn’s opponent on the ballot. Moses says fixing problems in the jail isn’t rocket science, if you leave politics at the door. But not everyone is convinced that he has the necessary skills to man the helm.
The two men, often diametrically opposed over what the role of a county sheriff is, have offered starkly different visions for the office. Waybourn emphasizes election integrity and immigration efforts undertaken by his administration, while Moses argues neither are in the purview of the sheriff and proposes a comprehensive review of existing policies and practices.
The Republican incumbent has also built on his reputation as a fundraising heavyweight whose contributions dwarf that of his Democratic challenger. Despite growing scrutiny of Waybourn’s tenure, Moses remains the underdog.
Deaths in the county jail
On the morning of April 21, Anthony Johnson Jr. died in Tarrant County Jail custody. Video released of the minutes leading up to his death show Johnson, a Marine veteran who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, telling a detention officer with a knee on his back that he couldn’t breathe. Instead of intervening, a supervisor recorded the incident.
The medical examiner determined his death was a homicide by asphyxiation. Two months later, jailers involved in the incident were indicted for his murder.
Johnson’s killing was the latest in a yearslong string of deaths inside the county jail. And the wrongful death lawsuit filed by his family is one of a series of suits from those who have lost loved ones in the jail. The county has paid about $3.5 million over the last two years to settle these lawsuits; $1.2 million of that went to a woman whose baby died after she gave birth alone in her cell. It was the single largest settlement in county history.
Speaking at a September clay shoot fundraiser in western Tarrant County, Waybourn acknowledged the tragedy of Johnson’s death — but described it as an isolated case where jailers failed. Those jailers are now being held accountable by the court system, said Waybourn, whose decision to fire the employees was finalized in July.
“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.”
Waybourn’s critics say the deaths aren’t isolated incidents and represent a systemic problem. Earlier this year, a former jailer pleaded guilty to lying about checking on Javonte Myers, who died of a seizure disorder in his cell in 2020.
When Robert Miller died in custody in 2019, the county attributed his death to a sickle cell crisis. A Fort Worth Star-Telegram investigation found he didn’t have sickle cell disease — and argued Miller likely died because jailers pepper sprayed him repeatedly at close range.
Tarrant County promised an outside review of Miller’s autopsy, which never took place. The county maintains Miller died of a sickle cell crisis, which Waybourn has said he accepts.
Most recently, the state found the sheriff's office violated the law requiring third-party investigations of all jail deaths. More than 20 deaths never got a full investigation from an outside law enforcement agency. Instead, the Fort Worth Police Department reviewed the sheriff's own internal investigations. The sheriff's office maintains it has not broken the law.
Waybourn also said the vast majority of people who have died in the custody of the sheriff’s office have died in a hospital under a doctor’s care. Research shows many people in county jails have serious underlying medical conditions; Waybourn said this also holds true for those in Tarrant County jails.
“I’ve got one in the hospital right now. I can’t give out information. But he’s very, very sick,” Waybourn said. “He’s been there for days. … Medically speaking, his life is not going to be that long, unfortunately. But what will it be? That’ll be a death in custody. We’ve had a lot of those deaths like that.”
Who is Bill Waybourn?
- Incumbent Republican sheriff
- Elected in 2016 after defeating Republican Sheriff Dee Anderson in the primary election
- Former police chief in Dalworthington Gardens for 31 years
- Formerly served in the United States Air Force
Travis Mears owns the clay shooting range — Defender Outdoors — that hosted the fundraiser. Mears said he has total confidence in Waybourn’s leadership, and the deaths in the jail aren’t a factor in his vote.
“I don’t plan on ever being in jail,” he continued. “If I was, then that would be more of my concern. Keeping us safe on the street is our main focus and knowing that our business and our families are secure outside of the jail is more of my concern.”
Waybourn’s challenger argues many of the people who died in custody should’ve never been incarcerated. Moses pointed to the death of Miller, who was arrested on multiple minor misdemeanors and had a history of mental illness. Learning about Miller’s death, Moses said, was his call to action.
If the sheriff’s office was working effectively with other law enforcement leaders and social service providers, he continued, people like Miller could be diverted to other noncriminal facilities.
“Once they get to that right facility, there are other paths that a person may need to go through, perhaps some education, perhaps job readiness, perhaps resume (preparation), perhaps the right kind of mental health care,” Moses said.
That approach, he said, would alleviate jail overcrowding, improve staff morale and cut down on overtime costs. Compensation records obtained by the Report show overtime pay has skyrocketed over the last five years, going from $2.7 million in 2019 to $18.6 million in 2023.
When Sherryl Simdon stepped into a candidate forum in Fort Worth’s Mistletoe Heights neighborhood Sept. 10, she was already sure the incumbent sheriff had to go. For Simdon, whose son-in-law has spent time in the Tarrant County Jail, the treatment of incarcerated people is personal.
“I got an inside view and an inside opinion,” she said. “When you hear things on the news, you can sympathize. But when it’s some of your family that’s going through this … and at any moment, something could go off the rails and he could be hurt, it just puts a different emphasis on it, it puts a greater sense of urgency.”
Policy reform
One of Moses’ campaign promises is what he calls the 100P3 Initiative: a thorough review of every practice, policy and procedure used by the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office. After that review, Moses said, he will facilitate a town hall meeting in each county precinct to share findings and next steps.
“The work of transforming the culture and ensuring that the right people are in place, providing leadership for detention, providing leadership for every part of the sheriff’s office — I’m prepared for that from Day 1,” he said.
The Fort Worth pastor has made the initiative a focal point of his campaign, dating back to early spring when he defeated primary opponent Indya Murray with just under 55% of the vote. He’s also promised to create a civilian review board to look at every death in custody. Through the summer, the sheriff’s office remained silent on the prospect of reforms or policy changes amid KERA reporting that its use of force policies have not been updated in over a decade.
That changed Sept. 4, when the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office announced a series of proposed fixes, including obtaining body cameras for every detention officer and conducting a comprehensive third-party review of the office’s policies.
Who is Patrick Moses?
- Former assistant director of field operations of the Federal Protective Service
- Current pastor of First Missionary Baptist Church
- Member of the Mansfield Planning and Zoning Commission
- Previously ran an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. House District 6 in 2021
The reform package came two months before Election Day, and less than a month after reporting by KERA and the Fort Worth Report revealed that the sheriff’s office had scrapped more than 450 pages of policy recommendations drafted by a former lieutenant. The draft was intended to provide overarching guidelines for all employees, which do not currently exist.
A week after the reforms were announced, KERA reported that Democratic Commissioner Alisa Simmons met with the U.S. Department of Justice to discuss jail conditions. The sheriff’s office also confirmed it had a separate meeting with the DOJ the same week the reforms were made public.
“We’ve had some people from the outside come in, which we are not publicly ready to say who,” Waybourn said in a Sept. 18 interview. “And we’ve thrown the doors open. If there’s something that we’re missing, there’s something that’s not going right — and these are subject matter experts — please find it and tell us. And we’re still digesting some of that report, which we will probably in a couple of weeks be able to make public.”
On Oct. 17, Waybourn did just that. The sheriff’s office released a report from the federal government evaluating the physical and mental health care available inside the jail. The report did not explore policies around use of force or restraints. In a video released alongside the report, Waybourn acknowledged some people will not be swayed by its release — but said he hoped the majority of people read it and see that the sheriff’s office is doing what it should be doing.
For some residents, that transparency is too little, too late. Dorothea Davis was another Fort Worth resident who came to hear Moses speak about his campaign platform at the Mistletoe Heights event. For her, Moses’ reforms stood out, because she said he seemed truly committed to change rather than offering lip service to voters.
“It’s time that we start shining the light on this and bringing this out,” she said. “Because if my family member gets arrested for a ticket or something, an old ticket, I don’t want to go to a funeral the next week. And that’s sad, and that’s basically what we are facing.”
Party politics
In 2020, Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential nominee since 1964 to win in Tarrant County. His narrow victory prompted hope from area Democrats that the county could lose its reputation as the largest conservative county in America.
Four years later, Democrats haven’t seen an accompanying blue wave in local county elections. Every countywide position is held by a Republican. Tarrant Republicans secured perhaps their most consequential victory in 2022, when current County Judge Tim O’Hare sailed to victory against Democrat Deborah Peoples. Since then, O’Hare and other Republican leaders have emphasized the importance of making sure blue doesn’t color Tarrant’s map this November.
On the local ticket, few conservative candidates have received more full-throated endorsements than Waybourn. When Waybourn first won election in 2016, he knocked off an incumbent Republican to do it. Since securing the position, he hasn’t faced an intraparty challenger. Even as pressure mounted around the incumbent, his endorsements remained steady, as did his most loyal donors.
By contrast, Moses’ candidacy represents both the hopes and frustrations of Democrats hoping to make 2020 a rule rather than the exception. He follows in the footsteps of Vance Keyes, a Fort Worth police captain who received 47% of the vote against Waybourn in 2020. And, like Keyes, Moses faces an uphill climb.
Campaign finance reports filed by Moses and Waybourn 30 days before Election Day show the incumbent outraised his Democratic challenger by more than $90,000 over the last four months. The majority of contributions to Moses’ campaign are $100 or less; Waybourn regularly receives individual donations of $1,000 or more, and noted a $25,000 donation in his most recent finance report.
Despite his underdog status, Simdon remains optimistic about Moses’ chance to capture the sheriff’s position.
“We’re turning this county blue. It’s going to happen,” she said. “And I hope it happens this cycle. I’m going to do my best.”
But while the sheriff’s race may be among the most politically polarizing on the local ticket, that doesn’t mean everyone is committed to their party’s nominee.
Glen Whitley is no stranger to crossing party lines at the ballot box. The longtime Republican county judge, who left office in 2022 after 15 years on the job, has announced his intention to vote for both Kamala Harris and Colin Allred over their Republican rivals.
In early September, Whitley indicated he’d likely cross party lines again to vote for Moses. Whitley worked with three sheriffs, all Republicans, during his tenure as county commissioner and judge. Waybourn was the sheriff during his last years in office.
“I think where I am right now is we need a lot more transparency in what’s going on in the jail,” he said.
Weeks later, the longtime politician was no longer certain Moses would get his vote. His first time hearing Moses speak was at a Chorizo & Menudo Breakfast panel Sept. 14, and he didn’t come away as confident in the candidate as he would have liked to be. Speaking to the Fort Worth Report and KERA Oct. 2, Whitley said he hadn’t made a final decision on who to vote for.
“He seemed to put more emphasis on the fact that he was a minister and that he was a pastor of a church,” Whitley said of Moses. “And I truly believe that this is a job that you’ve got to keep all of your focus on and that there’s a lot of stuff that needs to be watched and taken care of and reinforced. And so that’s a concern that I have, and I expressed that concern to him afterwards.”
Policing and preaching
After an intense primary campaign, where Moses lambasted Waybourn for the deaths on his watch, the Democratic candidate fell largely silent over the summer. Between March 18 and Sept. 2, as Moses’ Facebook went dark. Speaking with the Fort Worth Report and KERA at a September candidate forum in Grapevine, the longtime pastor said his campaign’s hiatus was unavoidable — he’d been on a deadline to finish his doctorate at TCU’s Brite Divinity School.
“Since March 6, I have been spending all my time and all my energy in ensuring that I meet the summer 2024 deadline of completing the doctorate of ministry, or I would have to start all over,” Moses said. “And I was not willing to make that kind of investment. So I had to make a tradeoff.”
When asked whether he feared the effect the pause might have on his chances, Moses offered a mixed perspective.
“As one who would pretend to be a politician, I would say yes. But as one who is really an optimist, I would say no,” he said. “We’ve still got work to do. We still have a few days ahead.”
Moses said he’s been creative with his campaign in the final months leading up to the election. Every day, he said, he meets someone who is not aware of the down ballot races, like the sheriff’s. He sees his job as educating those voters who may have been overlooked by other campaigns. And everywhere he goes, he carries a list of names of people who have died in custody.
“I’m going after every voter,” he said.
Waybourn, too, placed an emphasis on winning over voters, but he also cited a particular group whose support he finds paramount.
“As you talk about report cards for sheriffs, absolutely the voters are the big ones, but police chiefs are at the top of that list,” he said. “I don’t go ask them how we’re doing. If they have a complaint, they can call me, but you can go ask them how we’re doing and I would encourage you to do so.”
Mansfield Police Chief Tracy Aaron was among the attendees at Waybourn’s clay shoot fundraiser. He praised the incumbent for his availability and responsiveness to local law enforcement leaders, and expressed skepticism that someone else could come in and immediately improve operations.
“Do I want to continue with a sure thing or do I want to take a chance on training a brand new sheriff? That’s what it is,” he said. “Just like any other job, you’re training that person in that position. There’s definitely a learning curve. … There’s always something we can all do a better job on. And I think we capitalize on that by having experience in the position that we’re in.”
Whitley, despite his reservations, offered a different perspective. He said Waybourn has a good heart, but he hasn’t seen the commitment to transparency that a leader needs. Nor has he seen increased training to prevent future deaths.
“If you’re going to make a change, you make the change at the top,” Whitley said. “And so if you expect something to change, then you’re going to have to make that change.”
