Tarrant County maintains it is not responsible for the death of Anthony Johnson Jr., who died in jail custody in 2024, according to a court filing Monday.
Filed in the U.S. Fifth Circuit of Appeals, the county argues among several things that the Johnson family have not proved Tarrant County is responsible for any civil rights violations or that jailers lacked proper training that risked the safety of inmates.
“[The Johnsons] have wholly failed to plead a pattern of similar violations, much less a pattern arising out of allegedly similarly deficient training, supervision, or discipline,” the court filing read. "[The Johnsons] did not allege specifically how Tarrant County’s policies were defective or how the county should have further trained its officers.”
The filing is part of a lawsuit from the family of Johnson, a Marine veteran who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, according to his family. He died after detention officers pepper sprayed him and restrained him face-down on the floor of the jail, according to the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office and video of the incident.
Partially released video footage shows one jailer knelt on Johnson’s back for 90 seconds, while Johnson said he couldn’t breathe. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Johnson’s death a homicide by asphyxiation.
Johnson Jr.’s parents sued Tarrant County and 15 detention officers following his death, but U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor dismissed Tarrant County and seven jailers from the suit last year. O’Connor ruled the Johnsons failed to prove the county’s policies and procedures led to Anthony's death and that those six jailers had any responsibility in his death. Two jailers -- Rafael Moreno and Joel Garcia — have been indicted for murder and are awaiting trial.
Johnson Jr.’s family filed an appeal on that decision in December, arguing the county and jailers should be added back to the suit because the jail's history with previous inmates' deaths is enough to prove jail policy and training failed to keep people safe in custody.
More than 70 people have died at Tarrant County Jail since 2017. But Monday's court filing claims prior jail deaths were, “not specific nor similar enough to form a sufficient pattern” to support some of the family’s claims.
“For the county to now try to argue that they're not responsible for all the deaths that took place and for them to argue that they provided their jailers with adequate training is disingenuous,” Daryl Washington, an attorney for the Johnson family, told KERA News Monday. “Anthony should be alive today.”
Washington said one of the most critical pieces of evidence in this case is the full unredacted video leading up to Johnson’s death – something the county said the family is not entitled to in Monday’s court filing. They pointed to a trial court’s previous ruling that did not require the video to be released.
The county released parts of two videos in 2024 – one from security camera footage and the other from a cell phone video.
While Tarrant County fights to stay off the suit, it’s still responsible for paying for legal counsel for some of the jailers. Commissioners approved an additional $60,000 during last month’s commissioners court meeting to retain attorneys for two of the detention officers initially named in the suit.
“Instead of acknowledging that Anthony's death was wrong and trying to fix a broken system, what they've decided to do now is to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' dollars defending wrong,” Washington said. “It’s not going to discourage the family. We're going to continue to fight to the very end. It doesn't matter how much it costs.”
Additional reporting by Miranda Suarez.
Penelope Rivera is KERA's Tarrant County Accountability Reporter. Got a tip? Email Penelope Rivera at privera@kera.org.
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