Fort Worth Weekly // November 29 - December 5, 2023

Checking Out

METROPOLIS

jailers describing sheriff officials condoning and even encouraging jailers to falsify detainee checkup reports that are required to be completed every 30 minutes.

Trace McDonald, who worked as a Ranger at the time before the sheriff ’s office hired him as a member of their narcotics team last year, interviewed jailers Erik Gay and Darien Kirk, whose shifts coincided with Myers’ death. Gay’s unnamed defense attorney was also present during the discussion.

In previously unreleased audio, former jailers say they were forced to Former Ranger McDonald says the district falsify information, no attorney’s office “may not do anything at all” except perhaps “go after” the two jailers for one count of falsifying a government doubt to limit county document and “be done with it.” liability in case of an “I hate that it happened to y’all,” McDonald continues. “There is a remote chance it might in-custody death. have saved [Myers] had we kicked on the

Gay: “They were put in and not done, yes.”

Attorney: “Tell him about the global reasons why it happens the way it does. Tell the whole story.”

Gay: “That goes further up than just officers.

Supervisors know about it.”

Attorney: “If you are going to get in trouble for this, then you need to tell the whole story.”

Chasity Congious recently bought a baby doll to help her cope with the trauma of losing her newborn daughter inside Tarrant County Jail in mid-2020, the same time period when another inmate died of a seizure and was not discovered for six hours.

Gay: “Even after the in-custody death from the baby being born and suicides, the only thing [sheriff department leaders] are concerned about is making the computer look good. They tell you, ‘If you are feeding [detainees], stop what you are doing, [log a round of checkups], and go back to feeding,’ so you are openly …”

Attorney: “It goes to his state of mind when he was [falsifying the reports]. It is important to say the whole story now. We look at this as one big issue and not separate issues.”

Attorney: “ ‘Openly’ what?”

Gay: “Falsifying a government document.”

Attorney: “When you say ‘they,’ who are you talking about?”

Gay: “Sergeants and lieutenants. There are memos they put out as well. I asked my supervisor why they are doing this.”

McDonald: “I’m not going into this. This could certainly open a Pandora’s Box. For me, when you say a lot of that stuff, it is going to apply to internal affairs a lot more than me. I don’t know how that jail works at all. Right now, we are focused on this and you.”

McDonald: “I get how hard it would be to do all of your duties and keep up with this thing accurately as well. I’m not mad at you at all. It’s a technical thing that unfortunately happened around the death of a guy that may cause some stink. Hopefully, we’ll get through it. For me, even if you walked down the hall at all, I tended to give you credit for it, even though you didn’t look into the individual cells. I was primarily focused on the dead guy’s cell. Anything else?”

Attorney: “This is a systemic issue that has created itself. The jailers, the detention offices, are given the choice of doing what they are ordered to do, which is not practical or possible, or doing what they should do and getting disciplined for it, so …”

Based on the released audio, jailer Kirk, who was interviewed separately from Gay, said jail staffers often falsify reports to be

able to chat inside the watch tower instead of checking on detainees every 30 minutes.

The DA’s office indicted Gay and Kirk on multiple felony charges of tampering with a government document in 2020. A DA spokesperson declined to describe the status of Gay’s and Kirk’s cases. We will update this article as information becomes available. Sheriff Waybourn’s office did not acknowledge our requests for comment.

Details from the interviews could hinder the county’s ability to fight an ongoing lawsuit filed by civil rights attorney Jerrett Adams, who represents Chasity Congious, the cognitively impaired mother of the newborn who died at Tarrant County Jail soon after birth in mid-2020. County leaders have refused to settle, preventing Chasity from receiving the medical and mental health care she needs, especially after the trauma of losing her only child while jailers detained her during a mental health crisis (“Justice for Chasity,” Jan. 2022). During the early-2020 flare-up at home that preceded Chasity’s arrest, Chasity’s mother, Kimberly Hammond, told Fort Worth police officer

fwweekly.com

Javonte Myers’ body lay unattended for as long as six hours before anyone noticed he’d died. Based on findings by the Tarrant County medical examiner, the 28-year-old suffered a seizure. The problem is that he was being held in the Tarrant County Jail, a place where 52 inmates have died since Sheriff Bill Waybourn was sworn into office in 2017. In the year of Myers’ death, 2020, the jail saw the most deaths of any similar North Texas facility and twice the number of fatalities as Dallas County’s larger detention center, according to the Dallas Morning News.

Many civil justice minds see a pattern.

Tarrant County recently settled a wrongful death lawsuit with Myers’ family for $1 million. This is notable because jails are rarely found liable for deaths. One of the biggest obstacles facing victims or their survivors seeking restitution is proof that deputies and their bosses willfully disregarded county and state policies for checking on detainees and providing prompt medical attention.

But based on some explosive previously unreleased audio, the pattern seems very real in Tarrant County. At its core are jail bosses forcing jailers to falsify information to give the appearance that state guidelines for inmate checkups were followed, an effort that would potentially help Tarrant County avoid civil liability in the event of an in-custody death.

State law requires independent investigations of jail deaths, and in Tarrant County, the Texas Rangers field most of the cases.

We requested copies of the audio recordings tied to the Myers investigation as part of our broader, ongoing look into the role the sheriff ’s department plays in jail deaths. The previously unreleased recordings contain testimony from two former Tarrant County

door. I’m not trying to place any blame on you. This would have never been a big issue had not somebody died. Did you intentionally falsely put those entries in there?”

NOVEMBER 29 - DECEMBER 5, 2023

B R O W N

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

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Jason Brimmer

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