Judge hands former Tarrant County jailer symbolic sentence for his role in death
A former Tarrant County jailer will spend one day a year behind bars for the next five years to mark the birthday of an inmate who died under his supervision.
Darien Anthony Kirk, 30, will serve his 24-hour sentence each Nov. 25 in addition to his five years of probation and the $250,000 in restitution he was ordered to pay by a Tarrant County judge after he was convicted of falsifying records related to the death of Javonte Myers in the Tarrant County jail in June 2020.
Myers, who died of an untreated seizure disorder, lay on his cell floor for hours before he was discovered, despite jailers being required to check on inmates every 20 minutes.
A subsequent investigation revealed Kirk and fellow jailer Erik Gay, 36, had logged inmate checks they had not made. According to court records, when Kirk met with a Texas Ranger investigating the death, he admitted he and Gay had falsified log entries because they were talking.
Gay was sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to pay $250,000 in restitution in May 2024.
About a month before Myers’ death, the Tarrant County jail lost its state certification for six days after an inmate, Dean Stewart, died by suicide. Investigators looking into that case determined jailers had been late on three checks, which meant Stewart was unmonitored in his cell for nearly an hour.
Myers’ mother, Sondrea Miller, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Tarrant County and was awarded $1 million in 2023. According to a report by KERA, Tarrant County also paid for Kirk’s and Gay’s legal defense, as required by law, at the same time the county was paying to prosecute them.