More jailers added to wrongful death suit by family of man killed in Tarrant County Jail
Three more Tarrant County Jail employees have been named as defendants in the lawsuit filed by the family of Anthony Johnson Jr. after he was killed in the jail.
Johnson’s death was ruled a homicide, and two jailers have been charged with murder. Lt. Joel Garcia, a supervisor, and jailer Rafael Moreno are facing those charges and were the first employees named in the suit.
The 65-page amended complaint was filed Sunday night.
Daryl Washington, the attorney for Johnson’s family, said previously he expected to add new names to the lawsuit as his own investigation into the 31-year-old Marine veteran’s death progressed. The three jail employees who were just added played a role in Johnson’s death, including spraying pepper spray directly into his mouth, according to Washington.
Jailers Jaquavious Simmons, Elijah Marez and Johnathan Nymoen are now included in the suit. Other “John Doe jailers” have not yet been identified in the court documents.
More names are coming, Washington said.
“We think that there was not a thorough enough investigation conducted on the other jailers who were involved,” Washington told the Star-Telegram in a phone call Monday morning. “Simmons did not face any consequences for discharging pepper spray directly into Anthony’s mouth. We know that the autopsy report concluded that part of the contributing cause to Anthony’s death was chemical asphyxiation, which was a result of that pepper spray.”
Sheriff Bill Waybourn has said that jailers fought with Johnson while trying to check his cell for contraband.
Washington said Simmons deployed the pepper spray into Johnson’s mouth while Johnson was already handcuffed and on the ground following the altercation.
Marez and Nymoen were the jailers who held Johnson down by the legs when Moreno approached and placed his knee on Anthony’s back and the back of his neck, Washington said. Moreno, a very heavyset man, spent about 90 seconds on Johnson’s back, according to video of the altercation. When he stood, Johnson wasn’t moving.
A spokesperson for the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office, which represents the Sheriff’s Office, declined to comment on the amended lawsuit, saying that it does not comment on pending litigation.
New details
The lawsuit identifies Simmons, Marez and Nymoen as three of the jailers who initially entered Johnson’s cell on the morning of April 21. The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office said they went into the cell as part of a routine contraband check.
According to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office, Johnson was killed by a combination of mechanical and chemical asphyxiation.
“It was clear that Defendant Simmons was intending to cause harm to Johnson,” the suit reads. “At no time did Defendants Garcia, Marez, Nymoen and the John Doe jailers attempt to stop Defendant Simmons from harming Johnson.”
The suit also includes details about Johnson’s injuries not previously released. A Star-Telegram request for the full autopsy report was withheld with permission from the Texas Attorney General’s Office, with the DA’s Office citing an open investigation.
Johnson sustained injuries to his left shoulder; abrasions to his chest; contusions to the right anterior arm, forearm, left leg, right medial leg, right posterior leg and left anterior neck; abrasions to the fourth finger and left lateral knee; fractured ribs and a left subclavian soft tissue hemorrhage, according to the suit.
The updates to the complaint name Marez and Nymoen as two jailers who took Johnson to the ground in an effort to cuff him and says that after he was prone they punched and kicked him repeatedly and used their body weight to keep him on the ground. It says the two jailers held Johnson’s feet down as Moreno, weighing more than 300 pounds, knelt on him.
“Johnson had not committed any penal offenses, was not resisting arrest, or attempting to flee when Defendants Moreno, Simmons, Marez, Nymoen and the John Doe Jailers repeatedly punched and kicked Johnson and kneed him after he had been violently slammed to the ground, and when Simmons discharged pepper spray into Johnson’s mouth,” the lawsuit reads, alleging an abuse of Johnson’s constitutional rights citing previous case law.
The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office had not released Simmons, Marez and Nymoen’s names and has not announced any disciplinary action against them. Moreno and Garcia were fired after their indicment on murder charges.
“I think Sheriff Waybourn thought when he chose two people to blame that people would let go of the story, just say it was over,” Washington told the Star-Telegram.
He said his investigation isn’t over and he will be looking at other jailers, as well as people who were in the jail but not employed by the Sheriff’s Office.
But Washington said he’s also investigating the possibility that Johnson was specifically targeted by jailers.
‘Out to get Johnson’
Johnson was arrested two days before his death in Saginaw after police said they found him wielding a knife in an intersection. His family has said he was having a schizophrenic episode and a hospital refused to admit him for treatment that day.
The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office has said since the first news release about Johnson’s death that jailers were conducting a routine contraband check when the fight started that ended in Johnson’s death. Washington said he doesn’t trust that completely.
“It was discovered that Defendant Simmons had words with Johnson earlier and may have been out to get Johnson,” the complaint reads. “Upon information and belief, Anthony was placed in a cell that had not been clean or searched for contraband prior to allowing him to occupy that cell.”
Simmons is accused in the suit of using the pepper spray not to gain control of the situation but with the intent of inflicting pain or damage to Johnson. It cites the 2012 Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals case Massey v. Wharton, saying that case ruled that the use of pepper spray on a person who is not a threat to officers, not attempting to flee and is following commands is a violation of their constitutional rights.
It also says the same court in 2013 ruled that pepper spray cannot be used for sole purpose of punishment or to cause pain, decided in Ramirez v. Martinez.
“The force used by Defendants Moreno, Simmons, Marez, Nymoen and the John Doe Jailers was unnecessary and unreasonable under the circumstances, as Johnson, who was not attempting to harm anyone and pleading to the Defendant jailers that he could not breathe and was in respiratory distress, did not require the use of such excessive force,” the complaint reads.
The DA’s Office did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment in response to that specific allegation.
The suit alleges Johnson was immediately attacked when jailers reached his cell.
Partial video of the fight and other events leading to Johnson’s death showed him stepping out of his cell and one jailer pushing him backward, then bringing him out of the cell and pushing him against a wall next to the door.
The partial video ends as Moreno stands, with Johnson’s face blurred out. Johnson is apparently motionless, but because of how the video ends, details of how he was treated after he was unresponsive aren’t seen. The Texas Attorney General’s Office has given the DA’s Office permission to deny multiple Star-Telegram requests for the release of the full video, including a request filed after the partial release of video.
Johnson’s family was allowed to view the full video. The suit says that after Moreno stood, the jailers placed Johnson in a wheelchair. Other than one jailer slapping Johnson, who was unresponsive, in the face, nothing was done to help him, the suit alleges.
This story was originally published August 12, 2024 at 11:14 AM.