A trespassing suspect died in jail. Tarrant leaders question why he was ever booked.
Not enough law enforcement officers have been using a relatively new mental health diversion center meant to keep people arrested on minor violations out of jail, Tarrant County leaders said Tuesday.
During a commissioners court meeting, Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley pointed to a Star-Telegram report of the recent death of an inmate who had been arrested on criminal trespass. Low-level charges like that are supposed to be considered for the diversion center, which opened less than a year ago.
On Monday, the Star-Telegram reported that 65-year-old Kenneth Ray Perry died in the jail two days after he was arrested Sept. 27 on a charge of criminal trespassing. Perry’s autopsy is pending, and the Fort Worth Police Department’s Major Case Unit will investigate. All in-custody deaths are investigated by third-party agencies.
“The number of folks in jail with mental health issues and are deemed not capable of standing trial has soared in the last couple of years,” Whitley said. “The jail diversion center is our first attempt to try and figure out what we can do to prevent folks who do not need to be in jail from being in jail. We have got to keep working in that regard.”
The idea behind the center, at 812 W. Morphy St. in the Fairmount neighborhood, is to keep low-level offenders, like those who trespass, out of jail. MHMR, the local mental health agency, operates it.
Because of a lack of mental health care access, jails have become mental health institutions, experts said.
But law enforcement isn’t using the center, Whitley and Commissioner Roy Brooks said Tuesday. On Monday, at least nine people were booked into the Tarrant County Jail on criminal trespass charges, according to records.
Several women who are part of the Broadway Baptist Church’s justice committee spoke during the commissioners meeting about Perry’s arrest.
“It seems to me the real crime is having no compassion or regard for someone living in such an altered state of reality find help, especially when we have the criminal diversion center,” Becky Delaune said.
The church members, four of whom spoke Tuesday, previously addressed the commissioners court about jail deaths at least twice. They continue to call for the commissioners to ask the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct an independent investigation into civil rights violations in the jail.
Responding to the comments, Whitley said he would like the commissioners court to discuss and research how Harris County handles its diversion center, which allows jail officers to move someone there after an arrest.
“I’d like to see exactly what options we have after the police drop the people off,” Whitley said.
Whitley also compared the nine jail deaths in Tarrant County this year to those in the state’s other largest counties. Harris County has had 21 deaths, Dallas County has had 11, El Paso County has had nine, and in Travis County, six.
Tarrant County is also on the lower-end of jail deaths over the last decade, with 74, according to Whitley’s calculations. Of those, 47 have happened since 2019 and 17 occurred in 2020 (four were attributed to COVID-19).
In December 2020, Sheriff Bill Waybourn — who took office in 2017 — promoted Charles Eckert to executive chief over the jail. Since then, deaths have declined with 13 reported in 2021 and nine so far this year.
This story was originally published October 25, 2022 at 1:35 PM.
