More than two dozen people gathered outside the Tarrant County Administration Building May 17 to demand the prosecution of jailers and the resignation of Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn following the release of video showing the events that led to the April 21 death of Anthony Johnson Jr. while in custody at the county jail.
Michael Bell of Unity in the Community Coalition of Tarrant County said the detention officers directly and indirectly involved in Johnson’s death “must be held accountable.”
“Once charged, we demand that District Attorney Phil Sorrells prosecute the perpetrators of this heinous crime to the fullest extent of the law,” he said.
Waybourn did not respond to the Report’s request for comment before publication time.
Waybourn released the five-minute video at a May 16 press conference after Johnson’s family, reporters, and elected officials called to see the footage.
In the video, Johnson, 31, is asked to exit his second-floor cell. Johnson and the jailers get into a physical altercation ending in jailers restraining him on the floor. Johnson said, “I can’t breathe,” at least once as detention officer Rafael Moreno knelt on the prisoner’s back for more than a minute, according to KERA News.
During the May 16 press conference, Waybourn announced the firing of Moreno and Lt. Joel Garcia. Garcia, the supervisor, was fired for not having control of the situation, Waybourn said.
Initially the sheriff’s office said Johnson died after a struggle with detention officers resulted in him being pepper-sprayed. Waybourn later said Johnson had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and said his death was due to a lack of mental health care.
Johnson’s death is part of a larger context of deaths that have taken place in recent years, Bell said. More than 60 people have died in Tarrant County custody since Waybourn took office in 2017, according to KERA.
Bell, Dominique Alexander, president and CEO of Next Generation Action Network, and Pamela Young, lead criminal justice organizer with United Fort Worth, called for the sheriff’s resignation.
Young also called for the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office to release the full video of what happened to Johnson.
“Sheriff Waybourn, we demand that you release all of the video related to Anthony Johnson’s killing in your jail and hold everyone who is complicit in his death accountable now, and that includes you,” she said.
As of Friday morning, the Tarrant County medical examiner had not released Johnson’s cause of death.
David Moreno is the health reporter for the Fort Worth Report. His position is supported by a grant from Texas Health Resources. Contact him at david.moreno@fortworthreport.org or @davidmreports on X.
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