For the past 16 months, Shawn Fraraccio thought he was being kept at a hospital.
Instead, he was in solitary confinement at the Tarrant County Jail, according to his mother, Christy Bridgman, who tried to get him moved to another facility while he was in custody.
Since December 2024, Fraraccio was at the county jail after neighbors called police over a noise complaint. Fraraccio had allegedly hit Bridgman, leading to his arrest and charge of continuous violence against a family member on Dec. 18, 2024.
But his mother said she never wanted to press charges against him.
“The heartbreak of me seeing him go to jail, it was so horrendous,” Bridgman said in an interview with KERA News. “For the first few months, or the first six months, it was terrible. My heart [was] just crushed and I cried and cried and I know he did too.”
Fraraccio, 26, has intellectual disabilities, according to his mother. Bridgman describes Fraraccio as a sweet person, but has the mind of a 6-year-old and didn’t understand what was happening the night he was arrested.
“I begged the courts to drop the charge. I begged them and told them and pleaded with them,” Bridgman said, adding that he will require care his entire life. “So, what that means is he will never be able to know what he did or even stand a trial.”
Fraraccio was transferred April 14 from the county jail to Mexia State Supported Living Center, about two hours away from where Bridgeman lives. The facility houses individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, or IDD, and offers medical or behavioral support, according to its website.
But Fraraccio’s case is not an isolated incident – rather, an all-too common issue that occurs with inmates experiencing mental health issues, said Krish Gundu, founder of nonprofit advocacy group Texas Jail Project.
“We routinely lock people up like Shawn,” Gundu told KERA News. “We criminalize them for the intellectual and developmental disability in the state of Texas. There is a pattern of practice to push people like him into the criminal legal system.”
Fraraccio’s case
Bridgman fought to get Fraraccio’s case dismissed but was told by the sheriff’s office there was probable cause to keep him in custody because it was a charge related to violence. When her efforts to dismiss the charge didn't work, she said she tried to find ways to get him transferred to a living center that offers support to those with developmental disabilities, like My Health My Resources of Tarrant County, or MHMR.
Bridgman said she was told there were more than 50 other inmates like Fraraccio waiting for a spot in one of these facilities – and would take more than nine months to get him transferred.
Court records also show he was found incompetent to stand trial in May 2025, meaning he could not understand the charges against him but would remain in jail until he could be transferred to a mental health facility.
But Bridgman said she couldn’t leave him there and turned to the Texas Jail Project for help. The nonprofit jail advocacy group receives and files complaints about facilities across the state to the jail commission.
From there, the issue recieved the attention of County Commissioner Alisa Simmons, who brought Fraraccio’s case up during a commissioners court meeting last month.
Bridgman also spoke at that meeting during public comment, begging commissioners to help transfer Fraraccio and expressing her concern about his mental and physical health.
She said he had lost nearly 100 pounds since he was taken into custody and had bruises from hitting himself when she went to visit him.
“Please don’t let my son die in jail,” Bridgman told commissioners through tears. “He needs care, not a cage.”
Shortly after, Bridgman said she was told her son would be moved to a mental health facility within the next month.
Simmons celebrated Fraraccio’s transfer the day he was transferred, saying these kinds of practices in the jail are not fiscally responsible or socially acceptable.
“The delay in transferring Fraraccio to an appropriate care facility highlights a broader failure in how systems respond to individuals with significant intellectual and developmental disabilities,” Simmons said in a statement.
Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn said during April’s commissioners court meeting the county needs to ask how they can offer support to people with IDD.
“The older they get, the more the gap widens, the more difficult it takes for the parents,” Waybourn told commissioners.
“And the police, they've got very narrow path and that's how they end up in jail,” Waybourn said.
Jail system challenges
Fraraccio is not the first person with an intellectual and developmental disability that had this experience in Tarrant County.
Kai’Yere Campbell, 21, was taken to Tarrant County Jail after he was arrested in December 2023 for allegedly assaulting a group home worker at the group home was living in.
His mother told KERA News at the time Campbell was having an "episode" and group home staff wanted him taken to the hospital, not jail. Still, he sat in a cell for six months before he was transferred to a state-supported living center. He was found incompetent to stand trial, but still faced criminal charges.
Simmons also spoke out in support of Campbell’s transfer in 2024.
Kundu at Texas Jail Project said Fraraccio and Campbell’s situations reflect a pattern of practice to push people with IDD into the criminal legal system.
“The state knows how many people there are awaiting services from people like Shawn, and instead of expanding that system, there is this idea that we should be shrinking it,” Gundu said. “I'm not sure why. It's probably because it costs a lot of money. And it is cheaper to push people into jails because jails don't really provide care.”
Penelope Rivera is KERA's Tarrant County Accountability Reporter. Got a tip? Email Penelope Rivera at privera@kera.org.
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