Jacqualyne and Anthony Johnson would describe their son as the glue that held their family together.
Anthony Johnson, Jr., nicknamed AJ by his family, was the second youngest of five. He was a 31-year-old Marine veteran whose parents describe him as a kind person that never gave them issues.
Instead, Johnson Jr. struggled with a schizophrenia diagnosis.
“There’s two parts of Anthony,” Jacqualyne Johnson said during an interview with KERA News. “There’s an Anthony before the Marine Corps and there's Anthony after the Marine Corp.”
Jacqualyne Johnson said she tried to get Johnson Jr. admitted to a mental health facility on April 19, 2024, but said the staff turned him away because he wasn't a threat to himself or others. Johnson Jr. ended up leaving their home. The next day, his mother said she received a call from him saying he had been arrested, but did not know what he was being charged with.
Johnson Jr. had only been in custody for a day when he died at the county jail on April 21, 2024.
While in custody, Johnson Jr. got into an altercation with jailers that ended with him in handcuffs lying face down on the ground. An officer pepper sprayed him in the mouth and another officer, Rafael Moreno, kneeled on his back for about 90 seconds. Johnson Jr. could be heard saying he couldn’t breathe in partially released phone camera footage recorded by Lt. Joel Garcia. Johnson died, and his death was ruled a homicide by asphyxiation.
Two years later, his parents are still navigating that grief.
“I shed tears this morning,” Anthony Johnson said in an interview with KERA News. “Usually, it happens on Fridays because of the area I drive by where AJ and I always were. Just driving around in the Fort Worth area. It saddens me. I'm not going to be resolved until we receive accountability.”
“After seeing that video, we will never be the same again,” Anthony Johnson said. “They killed a kind man that had a mental illness."
Johnson Jr.’s mother said she questions how the family can completely overcome her son’s death under those circumstances.
“We suppress a lot when we're out in the public,” Jacqualyne Johnson said. “When we're home, it's a totally different ballgame, because we have to release that emotion.”
“(April 21) was very tough for all of us,” she said. "We're just not ready to say goodbye.”
Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn in the past called Johnson Jr.’s death a tragedy, but also said it was an isolated incident with individual jailers to blame, not the department.
Anthony Johnson, Jr.’s case
The Johnson family has been demanding justice from Tarrant County and several detention officers that were present the day their son died.
Garcia and Moreno were indicted on murder and had a pretrial hearing in March. KERA News reached out to Moreno and Garcia’s attorneys and will update this story with any response.
Along with the pending criminal case, Jacqualyne and Anthony Johnson filed a federal lawsuit against the county and 15 jailers, including Garcia and Moreno, for their son's wrongful death.
A judge dismissed the claims against Tarrant County and several of the named jailers last year. The Johnsons have since appealed that decision, but the county maintains it's not responsible for his death.
“Every time we take 10 steps forward, it seems like we take five back,” Jacqualyne Johnson said.
Since 2024, the county has spent at least $635,000 in legal fees to represent itself and jailers named in the suit.
The Johnson family regularly attend county commissioners court meetings, calling out commissioners over their son’s death and other incidents within the jail.
But while residents can still discuss jail deaths during public comment, it’s one of several topics commissioners cannot request briefings on.
Commissioners approved in a 3-2 vote to ban certain topics from being briefed, including ongoing law enforcement probes, active criminal prosecutions or civil litigation, and in-custody deaths.
Democratic commissioners Roderick Miles, Jr. and Alisa Simmons voted against the policy. Simmons has requested briefings on jail deaths several times from the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail and demanded accountability over its operations.
The Johnson family also wants the full video showing of their son's death to be released — something Attorney General Ken Paxton said would interfere with the active criminal investigation.
“The tough part for us is our case is pivotal, because it's on film, it's recorded,” Jacqualyne Johnson said. “And we have people still dying in the jail. And every time we hear death, it's like our situation happened all over again.”
Other jail deaths
Johnson Jr.’s death is one of 74 deaths at the county jail since 2017, the year Sheriff Bill Waybourn took office. The number of deaths has decreased year-over-year, according to a report from Waybourn at March’s commissioners court meeting. The jail had six deaths last year, down from nine in 2024. The highest number was in 2020 when the jail reported 17 deaths.
People have criticized the treatment and custody of individuals experiencing mental illnesses or intellectual disabilities.
Of the 74 deaths in the past nine years, 23 showed mental health issues and 11 were unknown – including Johnson Jr.’s -- according to reports sent to the Texas Attorney General. County jails are required to send custodial death reports to the AG within 30 days of the person’s death.
Waybourn told reporters during a 2024 press conference Johnson Jr.’s death was a result of insufficient mental health care within the jail and that more needed to be done to treat mental illness.
Jacqualyne Johnson said they tried their best to keep Johnson from being taken to jail – what he needed was mental health services, she said.
“We saw where his psychosis was getting out of hand and that we needed to do something,” Jacqualyne Johnson said. “We tried to do something. We tried to prevent what happened from happening. And it didn't work.”
For the Johnson family, the next court date in the criminal case is set for September 22, which will be a pretrial hearing for Garcia and Moreno. It’s unclear when the actual trial is set to start.
“With AJ's case, them killing him, I think that's where we are here to fight about,” Anthony Johnson said. “If we don't say anything, then AJ is just another person who was just killed in Tarrant County. I have to get out there and I will be doing this till the end.”
Penelope Rivera is KERA's Tarrant County Accountability Reporter. Got a tip? Email Penelope Rivera at privera@kera.org.
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