Texas jail commission requests missing jail death video from Tarrant sheriff
The Texas Commission on Jail Standards has asked the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office to turn over missing security camera footage in the case of a woman who died in the county jail last year.
Chasity Bonner died in the Tarrant County jail in May 2024. A Star-Telegram investigation from April found that video footage the Sheriff’s Office sent to the jail commission was missing the three minutes immediately preceding the medical emergency that resulted in her death.
The commission has “requested Tarrant County to review and determine if those three minutes have been preserved and if so, to submit them to the Commission,” said executive director Brandon Wood in an emailed statement.
The commission also asked the Sheriff’s Office “to identify what processes in place resulted in the three minutes not being included in the initial submission,” he said.
The Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Wood did not respond to a follow-up email asking how the jail commission did not notice the missing footage during its review of the case.
The Star-Telegram received the footage from the jail commission after first being told the Sheriff’s Office had not sent it. The Fort Worth Police Department, which reviewed the Sheriff’s Office’s case file, also initially stated it had not received the video, but reversed course soon after the Star-Telegram reported that information. A police spokesperson changed the department’s statement to say that the video was sent, but the reviewing officer did not view it.
Tarrant jailers performed required observation rounds before death
The jail commission’s standard operating procedure is to request 12 hours of footage before an event resulting in a detainee’s death to verify observation rounds were made according to minimum jail standards, Wood said.
Only cells housing detainees considered “at-risk” are required to be monitored with electronic observation sensors or camera coverage, Wood said.
“Although the inmate housing area that Inmate Bonner was assigned is not considered high-risk, video was available and was reviewed,” he said. “The video provided by Tarrant County demonstrated that the observation rounds documented occurred at the time they stated and were within the required 60-minute time period for this inmate housing area.”
The missing three minutes will not change this determination, Wood said.
