It’s time for answers, not excuses: Release full video of Tarrant County Jail death | Opinion

Recent revelations about Anthony Johnson Jr.’s death in the Tarrant County Jail have raised more questions than they’ve answered.

The county medical examiner ruled it a homicide, the result of asphyxia caused both by pepper spray and a jailer’s restraint. But what exactly happened in Johnson’s tortured final moments isn’t yet clear. Neither is who exactly was responsible, including what action medical staff took in response to Johnson’s distress.

Sheriff Bill Waybourn could clear up some of these questions with one step: releasing all of the related video footage from that day, April 21.

Waybourn has displayed a portion of it. He said that it shows an inappropriate and outdated restraint technique and that Johnson, once subdued, should have been put into a better position to breathe. Instead, Detention Officer Rafael Moreno keeps his knee on the back of Johnson, who cried out that he couldn’t breathe, for far too long.

But that’s all we’ve seen, and Johnson’s family maintains that the answers lie in what happened after, the medical response that the public has not seen. Waybourn’s office has declined Star-Telegram reporters’ requests for the footage, asking the attorney general to declare it exempt from state open-records law.

Now there are questions, too, of a jail supervisor’s role in Johnson’s death. Waybourn initially fired Moreno and Lt. Joel Garcia, but they’ve since been reinstated and suspended because of a misstep in civil procedure. Garcia’s lawyer, Randy Moore, says that the full video will show that his client followed procedures, including quickly seeking medical aid for Johnson.

At this point, there’s no good reason to withhold the video. Johnson’s family has called for its release, willing to endure the pain of the world watching his dying moments.

If there’s concern about protecting the county from civil liability and extensive possible damages, preventing release of the footage won’t help. If Johnson’s family sues, the video will be part of the case whether it’s released now or not. And the county has had to settle such cases recently anyway.

Perhaps Waybourn and the district attorney’s office fear tainting a potential jury pool, or at least allowing lawyers for deputies who may be charged to argue that the trial can’t be held here. As we’ve noted before, the criminal justice system must function in a world of abundant video, including of heinous crimes. Those who closely follow the news might be surprised how many people don’t, and finding plenty of them to select a jury in a county of more than 2 million people won’t be difficult.

Then, there’s the simple matter of whose video this is. The jail is the property of the public, not the sheriff or the DA or the Commissioners Court. Taxpayers will be on hook for the fallout from Johnson’s death. We need a robust debate about how to fix any systemic issues that might have contributed to the death of Johnson and so many others in the jail in recent years.

The jail is run in our names and to protect our public safety. We are ultimately responsible that the task is done with precision and minimal use of force. We the people deserve to see what was done in our name.

Some may express callousness about the whole thing: Hey, if you don’t want to get roughed up by a jailer, don’t get arrested and don’t have contraband, as Waybourn has alleged that Johnson did. But jail inmates are accused, not convicted. And many, as was apparently the case with Johnson, face untreated mental health issues.

We ask jailers to do a difficult job, often for poor pay and in wretched working conditions. When they err, we must decide where to place responsibility. And if we want to solve the larger issues behind some of these problems, such as overcrowding and mental health policy, transparency is a must.

For county officials, it’s best to take whatever lumps will come now. They need to be proactive and engaged with the problems at the jail. After all, the best way to fix a problem is to start by acknowledging how bad it is.

To do that, we all need to see, tough though it may be, just how bad it was that day for Anthony Johnson Jr.