A victim of a beating was arrested, not helped. He died on a mattress in his jail cell
A 46-year-old homeless man spent the last moments of his life lying on a mattress in a jail cell in Dallas after he had been robbed and badly beaten twice in the same day.
Two people have been convicted of robbing him on Dec. 30, 2016, and two firefighters were indicted for allegedly lying about the events that took place that evening.
Now his family is suing the City of Dallas, the two firefighters and several police officers, alleging that they failed to take Hirschell Wayne Fletcher Jr. to a hospital when police responded to his beating. Instead, the firefighters laughed at his condition and police took him to jail where he was ignored and slowly died of bleeding in the brain, the suit says.
The city and Dallas Fire and Rescue had no comment on the suit.
Arresting the victim of a crime
Fletcher — who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and mytonic dystrophy, which causes a speech impediment — was outside a soup kitchen at 500 Park Avenue in Dallas when he was beaten up by Jamario Watson, 31, and Shannon Perkins, 32.
Both assailants pleaded guilty to robbery, said Eric Kolder, an attorney for Fletcher’s family. The beatings were caught on surveillance and details of the assault are outlined in their indictments.
According to the indictments, the first beating occurred at 5:37 p.m., with Watson and Perkins both hitting Fletcher. Perkins picked up Fletcher by his jacket twice and slammed him into the ground. The second time Fletcher went down, he went head first.
Watson, Perkins and two other unidentified people then went through Fletcher’s pockets and took what they could get.
Fletcher crawled to the nearby sidewalk and sat down.
But Perkins wasn’t done with him. He went back over and stomped on his back several times.
Fletcher staggered away, out of the camera’s sight.
More than an hour later, Fletcher returned to the soup kitchen and once again encountered Perkins, who beat him badly again.
The lawsuit picks up where Perkins left Fletcher.
According to the suit, bystanders who noticed the injured Fletcher flagged down a Dallas police officer who drove by shortly after the second assault.
Body camera footage was reviewed by the Dallas County district attorney and by Fletcher’s sister. Both relayed what they saw to Kolder, he said. The lawsuit explains in detail what they told him.
After speaking with Fletcher for a few minutes, the officer who was flagged down called two other officers and the Dallas Fire Department for assistance.
Firefighters Kyle Foster Clark and Brad Alan Cox, both 42, responded. Fletcher, who was bleeding from his head, told them repeatedly that he needed help.
The lawsuit says that both Clark and Cox assumed Fletcher was drunk and began to harass and laugh at him as he sat on the sidewalk. They continuously mocked Fletcher for about 15 to 20 minutes, the lawsuit says.
“They decided to laugh at Fletcher because of the way he smelled instead of examining and treating him,” the lawsuit says.
Several responding officers, whose identities aren’t known, are also held accountable in the suit, because they stood by and did nothing, Kolder said.
Then, instead of taking Fletcher — a victim of a crime — to a hospital for treatment, he was taken to jail on suspicion of public intoxication.
Kolder said Fletcher was not drunk.
“Fletcher was arrested, imprisoned, and charged without any probable cause whatsoever solely because he was homeless and mentally ill,” the document says.
While en route to jail, Fletcher continued to say that his head hurt, the lawsuit says.
He arrived at jail at 8 p.m. and spent most of the time lying unresponsive in his cell. The lawsuit says no one at the jail physically checked on Fletcher’s condition.
As jailers walked by his cell intermittently, Fletcher’s brain continued to bleed.
He was taken to the hospital at 5 a.m. on Dec. 31, 2016, where he was pronounced dead.
Indictments against the firefighters
Both Clark and Cox were indicted in September for tampering with a government record.
The indictment says they falsified reports by stating that the Dallas Police Department hauled Fletcher to jail before their arrival.
Court documents filed on Tuesday show that Clark and Cox have been offered a plea deal of two years deferred adjudication and $1,000 restitution.
Court hearings for both men are scheduled for Jan. 24.
Jason L. Evans, public information officer for Dallas Fire and Rescue, declined to comment due to the pending litigation. The City of Dallas said it had no comment.
This story was originally published December 21, 2018 at 7:00 AM with the headline "A victim of a beating was arrested, not helped. He died on a mattress in his jail cell."
