The mother of a man who died in Tarrant County Jail custody of a drug overdose has sued the sheriff's office, alleging the county fails to effectively prevent drugs from reaching people in its jails.
The federal lawsuit was filed July 19 by Cassandra Johnson, the mother of Trelynn Wormley. Wormley, 23, died in the Tarrant County jail on July 20, 2022 due to a fentanyl overdose.
Court documents allege the county also has a pattern of disregarding medical and mental health issues people in-custody face.
It lists Chasity Bonner, who died May 27 after she was found unresponsive in her cell, and Anthony Johnson Jr., who died April 21 and was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
According to the lawsuit, Tarrant County allegedly has a "de facto" policy of failing to prevent prohibited items into the jail. It cites a case from September 2019 when an officer allegedly did not search an inmate's bag, which led to "prohibited items" inside the jail.
The suit comes after months of scrutiny and calls for accountability in the Tarrant County Sheriff's Office following at least seven in-custody deaths this year.
"The growing number of in-custody deaths in Tarrant County are not just noticed and felt by the families whose loved ones died," the lawsuit reads.
The suit lists 25 people, including Wormley, who had mental health or drug-related deaths since 2017, the same year Sheriff Bill Waybourn took office.
Outside of drug-related deaths, there have been at least 65 people who have died while in sheriff's office custody since 2017.
Waybourn has been outspoken on the issue of drugs, tying it to border security between Texas and Mexico. He was one of two sheriffs who spoke at a House Oversight and Accountability subcommittee meeting in April, despite Tarrant County being more than 400 miles from the Southern border.
During the hearing, Waybourn said Tarrant County residents are concerned about the open border and the "plethora of drugs" that come across it.
At the subcommittee hearing, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett — who represents parts of Tarrant and Dallas counties — mentioned overcrowding in Tarrant County jails and the $40 million worth of contracts with private prisons the county has used to send local prisoners to Garza County.
Tarrant County Commissioners voted to end the contract with the Giles W. Dalby Correctional Facility in September, three months early. The early contract termination follows a state inspection that found problems like medical neglect, a lack of safety training, and missing documentation at the private prison.
"That is concerning to me. It is concerning because as a former public defender, I actually had clients that died in the jail," Crockett said in April. "And most people don't understand that the main job of a sheriff is usually to make sure that they're taking care of the jail population."
Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons has called for accountability within the sheriff's office as well as Waybourn's resignation.
Simmons previously said during a May press conference that the number of in-custody deaths made him unqualified to serve.
"We need someone at the top in the sheriff's office who is attentive, who is available, who's paying attention to what's happening in his jail," Simmons said at the conference. "We should not have this level, this number of deaths at the jail."
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