‘No more jail death,’ protesters shout outside Tarrant County Jail after recent deaths
Daniel Garcia Rodriguez, 25, said he didn’t know what kind of a night he was in for when he was arrested during a protest in downtown Fort Worth in late May.
It was a Saturday, one day before the city police department would use tear gas to disperse crowds of people on the 7th Street Bridge and take around 50 people into custody, Rodriguez remembers. On this evening, he said, he saw only two other people getting arrested as they marched through the streets.
Officers brought him into a dingy and cramped cell in the holding facility with dozens of other inmates before he was moved to the Tarrant County Jail, he said. Conditions there, he said, were worse — and the experience sticks with him more than a month later.
Inmates had no hand sanitizer or soap, despite their requests, he said. Cells were packed at times with more than 25 people, he said, many of them sleeping on the floor, their heads next to a toilet. Guards didn’t require they wear masks.
Rodriguez, who said he spent 14 hours in custody before he was released, has become part of a group of activists calling for change inside of a jail with what they see as a troubling culture of negligence and racism. There have been more than 40 coronavirus cases at the jail. Three people died from unknown causes within one week in late June.
A spokesperson for the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office didn’t respond to a request for comment on Saturday about the issues raised by protesters. But in late May, after the jail lost state certification and a woman gave birth alone in a cell, the sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post that many recent headlines about incidents were “sensationalized or unclear on facts.”
On Saturday, Rodriguez drove his car outside of the jail in a caravan of about a dozen other vehicles, all of them blaring their horns. He stopped at one point and lifted his fist out of his sky roof.
“I was able to have a first-hand perspective of what the realities are of the Tarrant County Jail,” he said after he parked his car. “And seeing the abuse, seeing the mistreatment, seeing the injustice that’s going on in there, with the rise of deaths, with the rise of COVID — it’s just unbearable not to come out here, be in solidarity with the people who are in there.”
During his arrest, he claims, a Fort Worth officer struck him in the stomach with a baton, and then staff at the Tarrant County Jail ignored his request to see a medic.
He would not discuss what, if any, charges he is facing at the advice of his attorney, who was one of three lawyers at the protest Saturday.
The demonstration, organized by members of New Sheriff Now Tarrant County, was intended to bring attention to recent issues plaguing the jail that they say begin with Sheriff Bill Waybourn. Organizers were specifically calling for the release of inmates they said were being harmed, as well for an immediate independent investigation into how the jail is being run.
A couple dozen people met at the UFW Community Justice Center around noon on Saturday before heading to the Tarrant County Jail. In the interest of social distance, they stayed in their cars, circling the facility for about 30 minutes with horns blaring and messages like “Vote Him Out” and “We Demand Justice” scrawled onto windows.
Sindy Mata, one of the organizers, stood on the sidewalk shouting into a megaphone as cars passed. The most frequent chant of the day summarized their hopes: “No More Jail Death.”
“We’re here today to remind them that they should be transparent about what is happening and that we will continue to hold them accountable because our community deserves better,” the 25-year-old said. “And no life should ever be lost due to the negligence that is happening on their watch. ...We know that there are systems in place meant to harm our Black and brown communities.”
Three people died at the jail within a week in late June, according to the Tarrant County medical examiner and sheriff’s office. Jason Glendon Martin, 40, was pronounced dead on June 24 of unknown causes. One day later, Abdullahi Mohamed, 40, died of an unknown medical emergency.
A day after that, Javonte Lakendrick Myers, 28, was found dead in his cell after the sheriff’s office said he experienced an unknown medical emergency.
Protesters on Saturday also called attention to the inmate who gave birth in the middle of May alone in her cell. Officials said staff didn’t know she had given birth until they found the baby.
These incidents were referenced in the messages on people’s cars, from “Remember Javonte Myers” to “3 deaths in one week, a suicide and an unattended birth. This is Not Normal!”
“We want to make sure that the sheriff’s department knows that we’re gonna continue to create accountability,” Mata said, “and they should already be ensuring transparency and accountability to the community that they’re supposed to be serving.”
