Tarrant County inmate dies after being pepper-sprayed in fight during contraband check
An inmate died after he was pepper-sprayed while fighting with detention officers at the Tarrant County Jail during a check for contraband, the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
Anthony Ray Johnson Jr., 31, of Fort Worth, died just before 10 a.m. Sunday, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Jailers were conducting what the sheriff’s office called routine contraband checks in cells just before 9 a.m. Sunday morning when Johnson refused to exit his cell so it could be searched, according to the release. He began fighting with detention officers and they used the pepper spray “to assist in bringing the inmate under control,” the sheriff’s office said.
After he was pepper-sprayed, Johnson was examined by John Peter Smith Hospital medical staff working at the jail and was not responsive, the release said.
Medical staff performed CPR and Johnson was taken to JPS, where he died.
The medical examiner’s office will determine the cause of death.
The Texas Rangers will be leading the investigation of the in-custody death.
Johnson was arrested Friday by Saginaw police on charges of possession of a controlled substance in penalty group 1, tampering /fabricating physical evidence with intent to impair and evading arrest or detention and was taken to the Tarrant County Jail on Saturday, according to the release.
The sheriff’s office said Johnson was arrested after police responded to a call about a man standing in an intersection wielding a knife at a driver. When officers arrived, the sheriff’s office said, he attempted to flee on foot.
A detention officer was also injured during the incident at the jail and was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, the sheriff’s office said.
This was the second in-custody death at the jail in less than a week. On Thursday morning, Tarrant County detention officers found another inmate unresponsive in his cell after he hadn’t shown up for breakfast, the sheriff’s office said. Medical personnel from JPS responded and attempted life-saving measures, according to a news release. MedStar and the Fort Worth Fire Department also responded.
The man who died Thursday, identified by the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office as 42-year-old Roderick Johnson of Fort Worth, had been in custody since Dec. 4. Results of an autopsy are also pending in his death.
In a statement Monday night, Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons called the rate of deaths at the jail unacceptable.
“I will be asking the United States Department of Justice to investigate the continual problem of people dying in Tarrant County jail facilities,” Simmons said. “Hopefully, my colleagues on commissioners’ court are as interested as I to mitigate these occurrences and will be amenable to seeking a Justice Department review.”
Regarding Anthony Johnson’s death, “there are more questions than answers therefore I am unable to provide details because there has not been an investigation,” Simmons wrote. “I want accountability, I expect transparency and I want a full investigation into everything that occurred, before, during and after the altercation and the subsequent death of Mr. Johnson in our jail, including video footage.”
In 2019, another man incarcerated at the jail, 38-year-old Robert Miller died after he was pepper-sprayed three times at close range during his intake and did not receive medical attention when he told a nurse he could not breathe, a Star-Telegram investigation reported.
Richard Fries, a county pathologist, ruled in 2020 that Miller’s death was “natural” as a result of a sickle cell crisis.
An amended autopsy report last year reclassified Miller’s manner of death from “natural” to “undetermined.” But the cause was still listed as sickle cell crisis, which remains in contradiction to what outside experts have told the Star-Telegram.
At a public forum in January, Sheriff Bill Waybourn defended the conditions at the county jail.
There have been more than 60 deaths in Tarrant County’s jail since Waybourn took office in 2017. At the January forum, the sheriff said of the deaths during his tenure, all but six were due to natural causes and or drugs.
“They’re having heart attacks because they use drugs, they use opioids that cause cardiac arrest. We brought people into the jail, and this happens all the time,” Waybourn said.
This article includes information from the Star-Telegram’s archives.
This story was originally published April 21, 2024 at 6:20 PM.