Just over a year ago, 18-year-old Victoria was found hanging from a bookshelf inside her isolated jail cell. An investigation into her death exposed that jailers, in direct violation of the law, failed to check on her nearly a dozen times and failed to contact a judge for days despite her mental health screening results. In honor of Victoria, Think Progress took a closer look at suicides in Texas jails and found a deadly and systemic pattern of neglect. “A lot of people don’t realize how much damage can be done to individuals in the county jails,” says Texas Jail Project’s Executive Director, Diana Claitor.
The numbers of people dying in county jails are adding up in 2014—and most recently, one of them was especially tragic. Only 18, Victoria Gray died in September in the Brazoria County Jail after that jail failed in so many ways, it will take a full investigation to sort that out and hold officers and officials accountable. Some, like Victoria, die of suicide while others die of what is called “natural causes,” and their deaths are not always investigated. (More have died in police custody or other facilities; we are only listing those in county jails.) Earlier this year, the list included Courtney Ruth Elmore, was 33 years old. She died February 11, 2014, around 7:00 a.m.. in the Brown County Jail. Was the staff trained to watch for respiratory failure? David Grimaldo, 18, a Perryton High School student died just hours after being booked into the Ochiltree County Jail. The Ochiltree County Sheriff Joe Hataway read from an autopsy report saying that the teen died of a medical condtion complicated by intoxication. Could it have been prevented?
Brazoria County Jail seems to have a lot of problems and death associated with it. Brazoria County sued over jail inmate’s death 3/27/2012 9:48 AM By John Suayan, Galveston Bureau GALVESTON – Brazoria County and its sheriff Charles Wagner are the targets of a federal lawsuit arising from the death of a jail inmate. In court
I remember when Shelly wrote me about her husband, and how sick and sad I felt when I learned her husband Lisandro had died in that jail. She had also written the Commission on Jail Standards and they were no help either. Here is what she said back in 2010:
“I wrote you about my husband to you over a month ago, he died due to lack of medical care. . . his name was Lisandro Torres and we have a 16 yr old son. The jail maintained until his death he was faking after a massive stroke and was having problems breathing, chest pain, could’nt swallow and was tormented by several jailers and nurses. Nobody would listen and still wont but he sent me the proof three weeks before he died and over 100 letters [about what was happening.]”
