From his wife and the mother of his little girl: “Miss and love ya! Greg was a good friend, a loving father, a talented surfer, painter, and had a heart of gold. My husband battled mental health issues and as we all know Texas cut the budget for mental health a huge amount…”

When Sheriff Kaelin talks about his overcrowded jail, he likes to mention all the growth in Corpus and all the criminals in Corpus. A recent TV report dutifully quotes him without analyzing his “facts,” but lucky for us, Grits for Breakfast does. Blogger Scott Henson lays it out in plain Enlish: “Virtually all of the difference in the Nueces County jail population is accounted for by increased pretrial detention, which …. is a policy decision by judges and prosecutors, not a function of “growth.” And keep in mind this is a period when crime rates dramatically declined.” So this is a jail where 62% of the people are awaiting disposition of their cases—pretrial—and THAT is the big fact behind your overcrowding. You don’t need more room in the jail, Sheriff, you need more smarts in the courtrooms.

Maurice Chammah’s story tells how the family has gone to the courts for justice after the death of a greatly beloved 29-year-old son in Corpus Christi. This lawsuit will, we hope, shine a light on the horrible neglect that Greg Cheek suffered while in the Nueces County Jail. Despite training and safeguards, jailers there failed to see past mental illness and blue paint covering Greg, and they ignored his symptoms for days and days.
Click on “Continue Reading” to see the Texas Tribune story. Go to the Voices section of our website to see tributes to Greg that we posted when we found out about his death back in 2011.

“The defendants completely ignored the serious medical and mental health needs of Mr. Salazar during his detention at the Nueces County Jail,” the lawsuit reads.
This statement probably applies to many suicides, according to information and reports gathered by Texas Jail Project.

Corpus Christi Caller Times December 7, 2009 Overcrowding is a serious problem at the Nueces County Jail, as reported in our Nov. 22 series, “Paying the price to lock ’em up” With the jail often at 90 percent of capacity or higher, the risks of violence rise. Sheriff Jim Kaelin put it succinctly: “This is going

http://www.caller.com/news/2006/jul/01/marshals-state-jail-fails/ The Nueces County Jail failed a surprise state inspection two weeks after U.S. marshals pulled federal prisoners from the jail, the U.S. Marshals Service said Friday. State inspectors gave Sheriff Rebecca Stutts a timeframe to fix problems and said they understood why federal prisoners were removed, according to marshals. State inspectors finished the two-day