@Flipboard @bolts@journa.host
Huh. That's a pretty hyperlocal story for me, seeing as I live in Tarrant county.
>After accusing the sheriff’s office of violating the law last fall in light of Bolts’ reporting, Texas jail regulators now say there’s nothing they can do about the failure to commission independent investigations into deaths in jail custody, which have spiked on Waybourn’s watch. At least 70 people have died in jail custody since the sheriff took office in 2017, compared to 25 deaths in the eight years prior.
A near-tripling in the death rate is awful. Tarrant county certainly hasn't tripled its population since 2017.
>After the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office listed the Fort Worth Police Department as the agency looking into jail deaths, Bolts filed a public records request last year seeking Fort Worth police investigations into county jail deaths. Last October, the department said it had no records of those investigations, with a Fort Worth police spokesperson saying, “I’m told that the Tarrant County Sheriff Department investigates those.”
The notion that FWPD could serve as an impartial investigator of its county-level co-party is itself tenuous. The Thin Blue Line protects itself, and even getting information out of them through Texas' Public Information Act is a pain.
>In one case involving a death ruled to be from “natural” causes that occurred in the fall of 2022, the police department apparently didn’t send its review letter to the sheriff’s office until this month, with the letter from a Fort Worth detective dated April 14, 2025 concluding that the sheriff’s office investigation was “consistent, thorough, and complete.”
I.e., once FWPD knew that Bolt was sniffing around, they scrambled to cover their asses.
>Brandon Wood, director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, said that he hadn’t been aware of Tarrant County’s failure to seek outside investigations into jail deaths until Bolts’ reporting last October—despite his agency being copied on emails from the sheriff’s office stating the Fort Worth Police Department would conduct an “independent review,” according to records Bolts obtained this month.
So even the regulators consider themselves members of the Thin Blue Line.
>One measure filed by state Representative David Lowe, a former corrections officer and Republican who represents Tarrant County, would create an advisory committee to review in-custody deaths and make recommendations to reduce preventable deaths, while also mandating a detailed and publicly available annual report on deaths that occurred in county jails. Another bill filed by Salman Bojani, a Democratic House member who also represents Tarrant County, would mandate that death investigation records be maintained as vital state records. Nicole Collier, another Democratic House member from Tarrant County, also filed a bill to clarify that the Texas jail commission must appoint a third party law enforcement agency to investigate jail deaths, and require information about those investigations be published on the commission’s website. Collier has said that the legislation was prompted by the failure to conduct independent investigations into Tarrant County jail deaths.
Guys. Guys! You're just piling reporting requirements on, not actually tackling the behaviour itself -__- You *already have* a committee dedicated to this effort, and it *is not working*. You *cannot* expect law enforcement, of any stripe, to investigate itself.
>In the years after the Sandra Bland Act required independent investigations for jail deaths, the Rangers conducted the bulk of them, including in Tarrant County. But that changed in 2021, after the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office hired the Ranger who investigated the deaths of many people in the county jail, including Myers. That same year, the sheriff’s office tapped the Fort Worth Police Department.
Case. In. Point.
#Texas #TarrantCo #Tarrant #dfw #FortWorth #txpol #txlege
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Jonathan Emmesedi
Preston Maness ☭