2 Tarrant County sheriff employees indicted on murder in jail death of Anthony Johnson Jr.

Read the latest in our coverage of the death of Anthony Johnson Jr. and other issues in Tarrant County jail.

The two jailers who were fired from the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office in connection to the in-custody death of Anthony Johnson Jr. have been indicted on murder charges.

The Sheriff’s Office announced on Friday the indictments of Rafael Moreno Jr. — the jailer who put his knee on Johnson’s back for 90 seconds — and Lt. Joel Garcia, who was the supervisor the morning of Johnson’s death.

“The wheels of justice continue to turn in this case,” Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn said in a statement. “I said from the beginning that we hold accountable anyone responsible for Mr. Johnson’s death and we are doing that.”

Neither Moreno, 37, or Garcia, 48, is in custody of the Tarrant County Jail, according to jail and court records. Their attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The indictment of Rafael Moreno Jr. and Joel Garcia is an appropriate step in the right direction considering what we all saw in the video revealing Anthony Johnson Jr.’s last moments of life,” attorney Daryl K. Washington, who is representing Johnson’s family , said in a statement.

Johnson’s April 21 death was ruled a homicide by asphyxiation on June 7 by the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office.

The 31-year-old Marine veteran was pepper-sprayed and held down while handcuffed until he went unconscious, according to partial video of the altercation, which occurred during a contraband search.

Cellphone video, which captured Moreno putting his body weight on Johnson, was recorded by Garcia. Johnson could be heard on the video saying that he couldn’t breathe.

Waybourn fired the two jailers in May when the partial video was released to the public, but Moreno and Garcia were soon reinstated and put on leave after attorneys said civil service rules were not followed in their termination.

The family of Johnson, their attorney and an attorney representing Garcia have all called for the Sheriff’s Office to release the full video.

“Anthony’s family and community members have been anticipating this day to arrive, but it is only one piece of the puzzle,” Washington said in his statement on the grand jury’s decision to indict. However, he said, “The unfortunate reality is that there are even more people in the video who need to be held accountable for what they did or did not do. There were jailers who watched Rafael Moreno Jr. keep his knee on Anthony for over 90 seconds and they did nothing. There were medical staff members who could have helped save Anthony’s life and they did nothing. That is not acceptable.”

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Court records showed the indictments were filed on Tuesday. The case will now go to the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office for prosecution. A spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office said that the office doesn’t comment on pending cases.

Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons, who has been a vocal critic of the sheriff — even supporting calls for his resignation — said in a statement Friday afternoon, “Ultimately, one man is responsible for those conditions which led to Anthony and so many others not being with us today. That man is Bill Waybourn.”

Simmons’ statement also said that the partial release of the video showed a “mix of a toxic jail command climate, poor training, a lack of transparency on practices, and a demoralized prison detention force.”

Simmons also spoke about mental health issues in the jail, an issue Waybourn has also often cited .

Johnson’s family has said he was arrested two days before his death while he was having a mental health crisis, and they tried to get him help but he was turned away by a hospital. Saginaw police said Johnson was wielding a knife in an intersection when he was arrested.

“While inadequate mental health support resulted in Mr. Johnson needlessly being in the jail,” Simmons said, “this cannot excuse what followed.”

Johnson’s family has also called for medical staff who work at the jail and are employed by JPS Health Network to be held accountable.

Anthony Johnson Jr’s mother, Jacqualyne Johnson, told the Star-Telegram last month that the unreleased footage, which the family has seen, shows a lapse of up to eight minutes between the time that jailers found her son to be unresponsive and the moment medical staff began to give him resuscitation measures.

She saw the medical workers “smack him and try to rub his chest to make sure he wasn’t faking. He was lifeless, like a rag doll. I can’t express it any other way,” she said. “Even the correctional officers should have turned him over to give him CPR when they realized he was not responding. They did nothing.”

The health network said that JPS representatives had not seen the footage to which the family was referring.

Garcia’s attorney, Randy Moore, has previously said that the portion of the video that wasn’t released shows that Garcia called for medical teams to help Johnson less than a minute after he was found to be unresponsive.

Last month, U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, a Fort Worth Democrat, joined Simmons in asking the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate deaths at the Tarrant County Jail . Since 2017, more than 60 inmates have died at the jail or soon after experiencing a health crisis there, Veasey wrote in the May 23 letter.

Sheriff’s Office data show that there were 63 inmate deaths between 2017 and April of this year, 11 of which were due to COVID and 32 from other natural causes. Four were attributed to fentanyl-related overdoses, three were accidental, six were suicides and one was a homicide. One death was caused by gunshot wounds from a shootout with U.S. marshals, the Sheriff’s Office said.